
Class. 
Book- 



RECOLLECTIO 




OF 



SEVENTY YEARS. 



MRS. JOHN FARRAR, 

AUTHOR OF "THE YOUNG LAD/'s FRIEND," " THE CHILDREN'S 
ROBINSON CRUSOE," ETC. 




BOSTON: 

TfCKNOR AND FIELDS. 

1866. 






rsu 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

ELIZA FARRAR, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



MAR 25 1917 



SECOND EDITION. 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 

Cambridge. 



H)- 



i 









/^ 




I DEDICATE 

TO THE 

MEMORY OF MY HUSBAND 

THESE RECOLLECTIONS, 

WHICH WERE OFTEN REPEATED IN HIS SICK-ROOM 

TO SOOTHE HIS HOURS OF ANGUISH. 









PREFACE. 

IT has often been proposed to me to write the 
history of my life, by friends who have lis- 
tened with pleasure to many narratives connected 
with it ; but I have not been convinced that the 
strictly personal part of my history has anything 
in it worth laying before the public. 

Conscious, however, of having been acquainted 
with many remarkable characters, and holding 
in my memory not a few unwritten romances, I 
have consented to put on paper some of those 
past experiences, hoping that the Recollections 
of Seventy Tears of varied life may have the 
same interest for my readers that my oral nar- 
ratives have had for my auditors. 

Mine are " plain, unvarnished tales," never 
exaggerated, never embellished. Every anecdote 



VI PREFACE. 

depends for its value on its perfect truth ; and as 
most of them belong to my life in the Old World, 
and to persons who are no longer living, I trust 
that no one's feelings will be hurt by my dis- 
closures. I have in a few instances suppressed 
names, or given fictitious ones. 



CONTENTS 



♦— 

Page 

INTRODUCTION 1 

Chapter 

I. Residence. — Siege of Dunkirk. — French Rev- 
olution. — Detenus . . . . . . 7 

II. Robespierre. — Departure for England. — Abbe 

Gregoire 17 

III. Mrs. Barbauld. — Mr. and Mrs. Opie. — Ben- 

jamin West. — George the Third. — Mrs. 

Knowles 23 

IV. Elizabeth Fry 33 

V. Milford Haven. — French Spy. — French at 

Fishguard . 38 

VI. Lady Hamilton. — Lord Nelson. — Castle Hall 

and its Company 47 

VII. Herbert Family. — Sailor-Boy. — Wandering 

Girl. — Orleans Family 56 

VIII. Crabbe. — Buxton. — Joanna Baillie . . 67 

IX. Lady Macworth 76 

X. Princess Caraboo ....... 83 

XL The English Stage. — Mrs. Jordan ... 82 

XII. Bath. — Beau Nash. — The B— Family . 97 

XIII. Ireland. — Sir Harry Brown Hayes. — Brenan 107 

XIV. Miss Edge worth 118 

XV. Andriane 128 

XVI. The French Stage . 133 

XVH. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hope .... 140 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

XVIII. The Misses Allen. — Mrs. Sismondi. — The 

Young Widow 146 

XIX. Lady Mansfield. — Children in a Cave. — The 

Haunted House 153 

XX. Mariages de Convenance .... 163 

XXI. Unhappy Marriages 171 

XXII. Greenwich Observatory. — Mrs. Somerville. 

— Dr. Robinson. — Observatory at Armagh 184 

XXIII. A Remarkable Woman .... 195 

XXIV. Princess Charlotte 202 

XXV. Hannah More's Convert 219 

XXVI. A Converted Jew 231 

XXVII. Edinburgh 236 

XXVIII. Salt Mines .241 

XXIX. Novello Family 248 

XXX. Voyages 255 

XXXI. Switzerland 265 

XXXII. A Travelling Companion . . • 273 

XXXIII. Weariness of Etiquette 278 

XXXIV. The Maid of Honor. — The Orphans. — The 

General's Lady 283 

XXXV. Parental Authority 291 

XXXVI. The Village Apothecary 295 

XXXVII. The Gardener's Granddaughter . • 298 

XXXVIII. Lunatic Asylums 306 

XXXIX. Courts of Law ...... 314 

XL. Miss Delia Bacon 319 



INTRODUCTION, 



IN order to give some coherence to my various 
narratives, it seems necessary to describe 
their whereabouts, and my connection with them. 
As my earliest recollections date back to the 
time when my parents and grand-parents were 
residing in Dunkirk, during the latter part of 
the reign of Louis XVI., I will begin with giving 
a short account of my grandfather's establishing 
the whale-fishery in France. 

William Rotch was a native of Nantucket, and 
a member of the Society of Friends. Most of the 
inhabitants of that island were of that sect, and, 
professing peace principles, they endeavored to 
preserve a strict neutrality during the Revolu- 
tionary War. The consequence of this was, that 
they were made the prey of both parties, and my 
grandfather was often deputed to carry their 
grievances before the Provisional Government of 
the Colony, and also to the head-quarters of the 
British commanders. This was a service of great 
danger, and his life was often in jeopardy ; 
but his courage and presence of mind were al- 

1 A 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

ways equal to the occasion, and he saved the 
island from utter devastation, though not from 
heavy losses of property. Two hundred vessels 
were captured by the English, and he lost to the 
amount of sixty thousand dollars. In one night 
the boats of a man-of-war, commanded by mid- 
shipmen, landed their crews on Nantucket, and 
burnt ten thousand dollars' worth of oil for my 
grandfather, besides destroying the property of 
others. 

At the close of the war, when peace and inde- 
pendence had been conquered, the inhabitants of 
Nantucket found themselves in a ruinous condi- 
tion ; their commerce and their fishery were de- 
stroyed, and many left the island to seek their 
fortunes on the mainland ; others preferred to 
continue in the whale-fishery if they could find a 
place where it could be pursued to advantage. 
Before the separation from the mother country, 
they had there found a market for all the oil 
they could catch ; but the duty was now made so 
heavy, that it would not pay to send oil to Eng- 
land. The distresses of these once prosperous 
islanders determined my grandfather to go to 
England, and endeavor to interest that govern- 
ment in their condition, as Quakers, who from 
peace principles had never taken up arms against 
the mother country, and who would be willing to 
emigrate to England, and carry on from there 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

the whale-fishery, provided they were aided by 
British money, and allowed to bring with them, 
free of duty, their oil and their ships. Deeply 
interested in this enterprise, he embarked for 
England on board a vessel of his own, named the 
Maria, and I have often heard the old gentleman 
tell with pride and pleasure, that she was the first 
ship that ever unfurled the flag of the United 
States in the Thames. 

William Rotch was a very handsome man, 
tall and erect, dressed in a whole suit of light 
drab broadcloth, with knee-breeches, shoes, and 
buckles ; his head was a little bald, with flowing 
white locks, while still in the prime of life. His 
appearance commanded respect, and his manners 
were as polite as Quaker sincerity would permit. 
Arrived in London, he soon made his way to the 
presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
Mr. Pitt, who listened patiently to his account 
of the disasters which had befallen his native 
island, in consequence of the war and the peace 
principles of its inhabitants. When he urged 
their claims on the British government, Mr. 
Pitt said, " Undoubtedly you are right, sir ; what 
can we do for you ? " Mr. Rotch then told him 
that a number of families were willing to remove 
to England and to carry on the whale-fishery, 
if sufficiently aided and encouraged to do so. 
Here the conversation ended, and the subject 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

was laid before the Privy Council. The secre- 
tary, Mr. Cotterel, sent a note to my grandfather, 
saying, the Council would sit on an early day, 
when they would hear what he had to offer. He 
waited a whole month for that " early day," and 
then applied to the secretary to know the reason 
of the delay. He pleaded their having so much 
business before them that they had not been able 
to attend to his ; and with this excuse, they kept 
the American Quaker waiting four months. Then 
he requested to have a person appointed to con- 
fer with him. Unhappily, Lord Hawkesbury 
was the man fixed upon, and a greater enemy of 
the United States could not have been found. 
After several unsatisfactory and very disagreeable 
interviews, Mr. Rotch refused all further nego- 
tiation, and told him that he should carry his 
proposals to France. 

Lord Hawkesbury did not relish the idea of 
France . having the benefit of such a nursery for 
seamen as the whale-fishery would give them, and 
he tried hard to bend the Quaker to his purpose, 
but in vain. He and his son left London imme- 
diately, and proceeded in the Maria to Dunkirk, 
whence they sent their proposals to the French 
government, and were summoned to appear in 
Paris. There they were treated with marked 
attention, and whilst their peculiarities of dress, 
speech, and manners excited wonder and curi- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

osity, their scruples were always respected. 
Every privilege which they asked for was freely 
granted, so important was it considered to have 
the whale-fishery established in France. 

The Nantucketers settled in Dunkirk were to 
have the right to bring over their ships loaded 
with oil, the ships to be registered as French ves- 
sels, and the oil to be admitted duty free. All 
the officers to be employed on board of whalers 
were to be Americans, and bounties were to be 
given by the government for every full cargo 
brought home. In return for these privileges, 
each vessel was to have on board a certain num- 
ber of young landsmen bound as apprentices to 
the owner, and these were to be made good sea- 
men. 

That once flourishing town of Dunkirk had lost 
its commerce, and grass was growing in its once 
busy streets ; but it appeared to my grandfather 
very eligible for his purposes, and so it proved. 
He returned home with his son, to make the ne- 
cessary preparations for his grand undertaking. 
My father's chief preparation was getting married, 
and as it required much time then to build ves- 
sels and catch oil enough to fill them, he became 
a householder, and a father, before he went to 
France to live. 

When he did set sail for Dunkirk with his 
wife, he was obliged, by her extreme sea-sickness, 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

to put back, after being out ten days. It seemed 
necessary, to save her life, and he was obliged to 
proceed alone on his important enterprise, and, as 
the partner of his father and brothers, he estab- 
lished the whale-fishery in France. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER I. 

RESIDENCE. — SIEGE OF DUNKIRK. — FRENCH REV- 
OLUTION. — DETENUS. 

WHEN at last my father was established in 
Dunkirk, the outfit of his whaling ships 
was the revival of trade in that town, and the in- 
habitants welcomed the strangers who brought 
them wealth and prosperity. As the crews and 
the officers of the whaling ships were from Nan- 
tucket, and some of these had their families with 
them, there was a large number of Americans in 
Dunkirk. Many English also were attracted 
thither by the brisk business created by the 
fishery. 

After a separation of two years, my mother 
resolved, even at the risk of her life, to join her 
husband in Dunkirk, and his parents and sisters 
went with her, all strict Quakers, and objects of 
curiosity to the French, who saw for the first 
time the peculiarities of that sect, and could not 
understand either their faith or their scruples. 



8 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

The residence in a French town of such an 
exemplary family of Friends, was hailed by the 
English Quakers as affording an excellent oppor- 
tunity for promulgating their doctrines, and a 
succession of preachers came over to Dunkirk 
for that purpose, and always stayed at our house. 
As they spake no French, my father used to act 
as their interpreter, but once, when he could 
not attend, a person was employed in his stead. 
The preacher began his discourse with these 
words, " Job was an upright man " ; and they 
were rendered into a French expression equiva- 
lent to " Job was a tall, gentlemanly man," and 
the rest of the sermon was, probably, no nearer 
than that to the real meaning. 

The peace principles of the Quakers will not 
allow of any demonstration of pleasure at a vic- 
tory won by force of arms, in any cause, and 
when the whole town was in a ferment of joy for 
the success of the French arms, and was making 
great preparations for a general illumination, 
these conscientious Quakers refused to illumi- 
nate. The Mayor of Dunkirk was a good friend 
of my father, and urged him to do it as a mere 
act of self-preservation, " for," said he, " the 
people will be so exasperated by your not illu- 
minating, that they will commit some outrageous 
act of violence, from which I cannot protect 
you." Fully aware of the danger they would in- 



KESIDENCE. 9 

cur, both father and son were resolved, in spite 
of all the remonstrances of their friends, not to 
illuminate ; they would maintain their principles 
at all hazards. 

When their neighbors were lighting up their 
houses, they shut their shutters, locked and 
barred their doors, and retired to a back parlor, 
to await their fate. It was a very solemn time 
for them all, and was spent in silent prayer. At 
the end of an hour, the door-bell rang, and my 
father chose to answer it, though he expected, 
on opening it, to be assailed by an angry mob. 
Instead of this, a friend entered, exclaiming, " I 
am glad to see that you have illuminated after 
all." " But I have not done it." " Yes, your 
house is illuminated, and very prettily done too." 
In utter amazement my father went into the 
street, and saw a large frame-work of wood cov- 
ered with lights, and put up against the front of 
the house. This was the work of the Mayor to 
save the good Quakers from destruction. 

Though the French could not comprehend the 
principles of these strange people, they honored 
them for their adherence to them, and always 
bore kindly with their peculiarities. Even when 
the town of Dunkirk was besieged by the Eng- 
lish, and all citizens who could bear arms turned 
out to defend their homes from the invader, 
my father was excused from the duty of a sol- 
1* 



10 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

dier, and appointed commander of the fire de- 
partment, a post of danger which he solicited. 
The firing of hot shot sometimes produced a con- 
flagration, and that spot became the point toward 
which the enemy directed their guns. It was, 
of course, a dangerous place to those engaged in 
extinguishing the fire. My father thus proved 
that it was not cowardice that prevented his tak- 
ing up arms. 

I will now describe that siege of Dunkirk, as I 
have heard my father relate it. 

One of the numerous acts of the British gov- 
ernment to destroy the Revolutionary power in 
Prance, was sending a large force, under the 
command of the Duke of York, son of George 
III., to besiege and take the city of Dunkirk. 
He sat down before the town in the most ap- 
proved manner of those times. The wide plain 
beyond the city was covered with the tents of 
the English army, while rows of cannon and 
mortars seemed to threaten the ancient walls of 
Dunkirk with certain destruction. The peaceful 
inhabitants were much alarmed, and every citi- 
zen capable of bearing arms was enrolled as a 
soldier; for there was no military force there, 
and the English might have marched into the 
town and taken it at once ; but not knowing its 
defenceless state, they began to bombard it with 
hot and cold shot. Orders were given by the 



SIEGE OF DUNKIRK. 11 

Mayor that there should be in every room of 
every house a pail of water and a pair of 
tongs, to pick up and quench the hot shot ; also, 
every closet door must stand open, and all the 
women and children were advised to leave the 
town. All those who could afford it went off to 
Calais and put up at Dessein's famous hotel. 
They rushed off in such haste as to be very ill 
provided with clothes, and some days after that, 
when my mother and her children arrived with 
ample wardrobes, her clothes were borrowed by 
all her friends, and as she wore the Quaker cos- 
tume, she was amused to see her plain garments 
on gay, fashionable Frenchwomen. 

A courier arrived daily from Dunkirk and pro- 
claimed, from the steps of the Town Hall, the 
progress of the siege. All the fugitive ladies 
would run out, without bonnet or shawl, and 
stand around him to hear the news. There 
came letters from their husbands written without 
any regard to truth, merely to suit the wishes of 
the writer. If a man had a very timid wife, and 
was fearful she would fly farther, he would tell 
her that the town was very quiet, and he was in 
no danger. If a husband was afraid his wife 
would return inopportunely, he would write that 
the enemy was at the gates of the city, half of its 
inhabitants were killed, and the streets ran blood. 
These ladies, living together, naturally compared 



12 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the accounts they received, and finding them so 
very contradictory, they knew not what to be- 
lieve ; some were very angry, and all were much 
annoyed. At last one of them said, let us ask 
Madame Rotch what her husband writes, for the 
Quakers do not lie. They did so, heard the 
truth, and ever after relied on her letters for 
their news of the siege. 

A force sufficient to defend the town was soon 
sent to Dunkirk, and some little fighting took 
place without the walls, but the cannonading of 
the town did little damage. The merchants used 
to dine round at each other's houses, eat up all 
their wives' preserves and other good things, and 
have a jolly time of it. One morning the can- 
nonading did not begin as early as usual, and, on 
looking through their telescopes, the men on the 
ramparts could see no movement in the British 
camp. At last the truth dawned on them, that 
the English had run away in the night. A visit 
to the camp showed with what haste they had de- 
parted. In the Duke of York's tent were found 
his watch and all his dressing equipage. This 
extraordinary retreat excited the utmost con- 
tempt of the French, and the indignation of the 
English people. The Duke of York was de- 
prived of his command, and it was several years 
before he was again employed. 

I have hitherto related only what I remem- 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. 13 

ber to have heard from others ; but now I come 
to a period when I can remember what I saw 
myself, and it is not wonderful that, living in 
the midst of a bloody revolution, my earliest 
recollection should be the sight of the guillotine, 
erected in the great square of the town of Dun- 
kirk. Sent out to walk before breakfast, with 
my nurse, we happened to see it just arrived, 
and in the process of erection. On my return 
home I told my mother of it, with childish glee, 
and was astonished at the horror with which she 
heard my account. 

At this time the Revolutionary government de- 
creed that all the British subjects then in France 
should be imprisoned, and my nurse, being an 
Englishwoman, was shut up in a nunnery, used 
as a prison, after the nuns had been liberated. 
It was in vain to tell her that her life was not in 
danger ; she was extremely frightened, and to 
calm her fears and make her imprisonment less 
tedious, my mother sent me every morning to 
pass several hours with her ; so visits to a nun's 
cell are among my earliest recollections. My 
mother valued relics so much, that she sent a 
good chair of her own to be exchanged for the 
shabby old one of the cell occupied by my nurse, 
and I have that nun's chair now. 

After the imprisonment of the English in 
France, two American ladies were walking on 



14 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the ramparts of Dunkirk and conversing to- 
gether. A sentinel said to his comrade, " All 
the English are not in prison ; shall we arrest 
those ? " On hearing this, one of the speakers 
said to the soldier, u We are Americans, and we 
speak the American language." Both the men 
applauded them, for the French loved America in 
those days. 

Another instance of female courage occurs to 
my mind as happening in that same town of Dun- 
kirk. Mrs. R., an American lady, was convers- 
ing with a gentleman who had some care of her 
during the absence of her husband in Paris. It 
was after nine o'clock, and he was preparing to 
go home, when a servant stole quietly into the 
room, and whispered to her mistress, that the 
man-servant had brought two armed men into 
the house ; they were now in his room, and she 
had no doubt that they would rob the house and 
murder the family. Mrs. R. tried to allay her 
fears, by saying those men were probably friends 
of Joseph, and were merely paying him a visit, 
and she desired the girl to keep quiet in the 
kitchen and she would send the soldiers away. 
Her friend Captain M. offered to speak to the 
men for her, but she thought it best to try first 
if she could manage them, and keep the Captain 
for a reserve force ; so she went to the foot of the 
stairs, leading up from the kitchen to the man's 



DETENUS. 15 

room, and said, " Joseph, it is time for your 
friends to go home, and for you to shut up the 
house and go to bed ; send them away directly." 
Joseph made no reply, and she returned to the 
parlor to wait the effect of her commands. They 
availed nothing, so she went again, in spite of 
Captain M's. remonstrance and wish to go him- 
self. Her objection to his going was, that it 
would appear as if she was alarmed, and she 
meant that her authority, as mistress of the 
house, should prevail. 

She told Joseph those men must come down 
and leave her house directly, and added, "If 
they do not move at once, I will come up to 
them." One would suppose that armed men 
would laugh at such a vain threat, but so far 
from it, they obeyed at once. To get out of the 
house they had to pass by the open parlor door, 
and Mrs. R. placed herself so as to see them pass 
through an entry in which stood a rocking-horse 
with a child's hat hung on his head. One of the 
men seized the hat and was carrying it off, when 
she called to him to let that hat alone, and he 
threw it back into the entry. " Well done ! " 
said the Captain, " you are a brave woman. I 
should have let him carry off the hat." 

Among the English detenus, as they were 
called, was the author and poet, Helen Maria 
Williams, well known in this country as the 



16 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

writer of that beautiful hymn, beginning, " While 
Thee I seek, protecting Power." She was ac- 
quainted with my father, and hearing that he was 
in Paris, when she was imprisoned, she sent for 
him, and begged him, as an American, to claim 
her as his wife and so procure her liberty. The 
truthful Quaker was not so corrupted by his resi- 
dence in France, as to be willing to make this 
false claim ; he was, however, induced by her 
eloquent pleading, to promise not to deny what 
she might say on the subject, unless directly 
questioned. She succeeded in obtaining her 
liberty and fled to England. The apparent in- 
difference of the supposed husband threw no dis- 
credit on her pretended relation to him. 



ROBESPIERRE. 17 



• CHAPTER II. 

ROBESPIERRE. — DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND. — ABB^ 
GREGOIRE. 

I HAVE so often heard my father describe 
Robespierre that I feel as I had myself seen 
that mean-looking little man, with his ruffles, 
and his hair elaborately dressed. As it was con- 
sidered, in those days, that to be well dressed was 
anti-republican, his elaborate toilet was the more 
remarkable. My father narrowly escaped with 
his life, after an interview with this worst of 
tyrants. He was deputed by the American mer- 
chants of Dunkirk, who were suffering under an 
act of embargo, to take up a petition for its re- 
moval from vessels belonging to so friendly a 
power as the United States. He was to read the 
petition at the bar of the National Convention ; 
a body of men who were supposed to represent 
the will of the people, but were, at that time, en- 
tirely subservient to the will of one man, and 
that man Robespierre. He allowed the House 
to appoint only one committee, called the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety; to that all important 
cases were referred, and there Robespierre ruled 



18 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS 

every decision. Over the door of the committee- 
room was written, " Engrossed by the affairs of 
the nation, we have no time to consider private 
claims." 

My father was told that he must read his peti- 
tion to Robespierre, before he attempted to read 
it in the National Convention ; so he sought an 
interview with that dangerous man at his own 
residence. He was shown through a suite of 
shabby rooms, where the family were employed 
in household work, to a long, unfurnished hall, 
where he found half a dozen gentlemen waiting 
to see the despot. There was not a seat in the 
room, until a door opened and Robespierre en- 
tered, in his dressing-gown, followed by his hair- 
dresser, who carried a chair in his hand for his 
master to sit on whilst he was powdered. When 
powder was generally worn, it was the custom to 
put it on, in some small room or closet devoted 
to the purpose, and to powder in the presence of 
another person was considered an insult. That 
Robespierre should come into his audience-cham- 
ber to perform that part of his toilet was a piece 
of arrogance and rudeness never to be forgotten. ' 
The hair-dresser applied the powder-puff until 
there was a cloud of powder all around him, and 
of course the dark coats, in waiting, were none 
the better for it. When the hair-dresser retired, 
he carried off the chair with him, and Robe- 



ROBESPIERRE. 19 

spierre went up to a mirror and adjusted every 
hair around his face. He then exchanged his 
dressing-gown for a coat which his valet brought, 
and assisted him to put on. That done, he 
turned to the knot of gentlemen who were stand- 
ing at one end of the room, and said he was ready 
to hear what they had to say. Those who spoke be- 
fore my father did were very summarily disposed 
of with negative answers. Then he produced 
his petition, and asked Robespierre to read it. 
He did so, and returned it, saying, " That petition 
cannot be presented to the National Convention, 
for it contains views to change the government." 
Such words from such a man were equivalent to 
a sentence of death. My father knew it, and 
perceived at once what was the objectionable 
part. The merchants asked for a committee to 
be appointed to examine the claims of American 
ship-owners, and Robespierre had abolished all 
committees but the one of which he was the mov- 
ing power. With wonderful presence of mind 
my father took out his pencil, struck out that re- 
quest and showed the paper to Robespierre, who, 
on -seeing the alteration, said that might be read 
the next day at the bar of the National Conven- 
tion. As my father left the hall, a friend who 
had accompanied him there, said, " We are a 
head shorter for this." " Never mind," was the 
reply, " we shall go in good company." 



20 RECOLLECTIONS OP SEVENTY YEARS. 

While my father was reading the petition, 
Robespierre entered one of the galleries, and as 
soon as it was ended, he moved that it should 
be referred to the Committee of Public Safety. 
This quashed it at once, but the reader's life 
was saved. 

Not until after the fall of Robespierre, was my 
father permitted to leave France ; then he em- 
barked with his whole family and all his valu- 
ables on board one of his own vessels, and sailed 
for America. He was aware that a number of 
persons had secreted themselves on board his 
ship, in order to escape from Prance, and as two 
custom-house officers accompanied the vessel 
down the harbor, my father was afraid they 
would discover the fugitives. To prevent this 
he provided a handsome lunch and plenty of 
good wine, of which they partook so largely that 
they forgot to examine the vessel, and left her in 
high good humor. 

Instead of proceeding to the United States, we 
landed in England, and our arrival was impressed 
on my memory by my being checked in singing 
the following words : — 

" Le Due de York est un poltron, 
Vive le son, vive le son." 

I was told that I was now in the country of the 
Duke, and must never sing that again. This 



abb£ gkegoire. 21 

was unnecessary caution ; but we had come from 
a land where every word must be guarded, lest 
life should be the forfeit, and it was difficult for 
us to realize that there was liberty of speech in 
England. 

A suit in chancery to recover the insurance on 
a vessel burnt at sea, was what took my father to 
England, and its long duration caused him to 
settle in that country. 

The Abbe Gregoire lived in the time of the 
first French Revolution. He was a republi- 
can in his principles, but a lover of law and 
order. He was made a Bishop in the Roman 
Church, but was very liberal in his opinions. 
My father was on intimate terms with him, and 
ventured to ask him whether he believed in all 
the ceremonies of his Church ; he said he did 
not, but added, "We must make religion thick 
enough for the people to feel it, or it will slip 
through their fingers." 

A better saying of his was one that saved his 
life. Paris in those days was lighted by glass 
lanterns called reverberes, suspended by ropes over 
the centre of the street, and the mob were often 
pleased to use that arrangement for hanging any 
one obnoxious to them. At one time, every well- 
dressed man was in danger of this summary pun- 
ishment, and the Abb£ Gregoire being one day too 
neat and clean to suit the taste of a mob of ruf- 



22 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

fians, they called him an aristocrat, and cried out, 
A la lanterne ! They would have hanged him on 
the spot, if he had not saved his life by this im- 
promptu jeu d? esprit : — 

" Croyez vous voir plus clair, 
Quand je prends la place du reVerbere." 

The mob applauded him, and he passed on in 
safety. Courage and presence of mind were 
much needed in those times. 

I remember hearing my father say that he was 
in Paris when the Queen was beheaded, and that 
he dared not go out of his hotel before the exe- 
cution, for fear of seeing some part of it; nor 
after it was over, for fear his countenance should 
betray his horror of the deed, and cause his ar- 
rest as a loyalist. It happened to my father, more 
than once, to be engaged to dine with a friend, 
and when he went to the house, to be told by the 
servant that his master had been taken the night 
before to the Conciergerie. Few ever left that 
prison but to go to execution. It was considered 
as the next step to the guillotine. 



MRS. BARBAULD. 23 



CHAPTER III. 

MRS. BARBAULD. — MR. AND MRS. OPIE. — BENJAMIH 
WEST. — GEORGE THE THIRD. — MRS. KNOWLES. 

DICKENS has shown us the great influence 
which a chancery suit may exert over the 
lives and characters of all concerned in it. My 
father's suit continued so many years, that it 
broke up all his plans of returning to his native 
land, and planted him for life in England with 
all the privileges of a British subject. We re- 
sided for a time at Islington, a suburb of London, 
and there my mother made the acquaintance of 
Mrs. Barbauld, who was then writing for the 
benefit of her little nephew, Charles Aikin, those 
hymns and lessons which have since delighted 
so many children, both in the Old and the New 
World. Melancholy, however, were the conse- 
quences of her devotion to that bright little boy. 
His brain was overtaxed, and the precocious child 
became an idiot before he reached maturity. 

I remember sitting on Mrs. Barbauld's lap and 
her asking me if I could read, and what book I 
was then reading ; I answered, " Barbauld's Les- 
sons," quite unconscious that I was sitting in 



24 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the lap of their author. She then said, " I sup- 
pose you study geography, and can tell me what 
ocean is between England and America." I 
said, " The Atlantic," which I knew from hearing 
my mother speak of her relations as being on the 
other side of the Atlantic, not from any study of 
geography ; and fearing I might not be able to 
answer another question, I hurried away from 
her. 

I often met her after I was grown up, and re- 
member her as a sweet-looking, lively old lady, 
wearing her gray hair, which was then very un- 
common, and reading aloud to a circle of young 
people, on a rainy morning in the country. She 
read well ; the book was " Guy Mannering," then 
just published. When she had given us the de- 
scription of Meg Merrilies, she asked us all to 
draw the Gypsy as we imagined her, and very 
different were the sketches we made. My sister's 
was the best, but the kind old lady took posses- 
sion of them all as valuable to her. 

Mrs. Opie, another author and poet, as differ- 
ent as possible from Mrs. Barbauld, was an ac- 
quaintance of my mother. Her novels were at 
this time very popular, and her husband was 
equally famous as an historical painter. He 
had many admirers, but his works were not of a 
high order. He made all his male faces with 
large, ugly noses, so that one could always know 



• MRS. OPIE. 25 

his pictures by that feature. My mother had 
such an instinctive appreciation of painting, that 
Mr. West made a point of going with her to the 
annual exhibition of the works of living artists, 
that he might hear her natural remarks on the 
principal pictures. She criticised all Opie's so 
severely that Mr. West feared she might be over- 
heard by him and hastened to tell her whose they 
were. Mr. West's pictures did not wholly escape 
her criticism, but she generally knew beforehand 
which were his. 

When Mrs. Opie became a gay widow, we often 
met her at the house of a mutual friend, where 
her eccentric conduct amused some, and dis- 
gusted others. I have seen her astonish a grave 
circle of elderly people by jumping up and dan- 
cing a shawl-dance then in vogue on the stage, 
flourishing away to a tune of her own singing, 
apparently unconscious of the effect she was pro- 
ducing. She used to carry about with her in all 
her visits a pretty little stringed instrument, in 
the classic form of a lyre, and sing her own songs, 
with great expression, to that accompaniment. 
She said she could always find out the secrets 
of a young girl's heart, if she could sing to her 
alone. She tried her experiment on me and 
proved right. 

Mrs. Opie was fair, with delicate features and 
a form of symmetrical beauty. The well-formed 
2 



26 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

hands and arms were always on exhibition, and 
short and scanty skirts disclosed the prettiest feet 
and ankles. Her talents and accomplishments, 
her novels, her poetry, and her singing, made her, 
for a time, a favorite with the fashionables of 
London, and she highly enjoyed her popularity ; 
but it did not last long, and when it failed, she 
took refuge from the gay world in a circle of 
wealthy and highly cultivated Quakers. The 
Gurneys, Barclays, Hoares, Woods, and Frys, 
were her intimate friends, and after several 
years passed among them, she joined the Society 
of Friends and adopted their dress and language. 
I saw her once after her metamorphosis, and 
could but remark the discrepancy between her 
costume and her manners, which still savored 
of the wicked world. The pretty foot was still 
seen, though the dress was long and ample, and 
the glove was unnecessarily taken off to show the 
beautiful hand. Amelia Opie was not changed, 
only acting a new part. 

I have already mentioned Benjamin West. He 
was historical painter to George III.", but still 
a true son of America, and much known to 
Americans in London. My parents were inti- 
mate with him, and he always took an interest 
in their children. My father showed him some 
flowers of my painting, on which he said, " Do 
not let her waste her time on such things as 



BENJAMIN WEST. 27 

these ; make her draw heads ; any one who can 
draw or paint the human face divine, will find all 
other objects easy work." Mrs. West had a very 
beautiful little spaniel of King Charles's breed, 
and on my mother's admiring it, Mr. West made 
a portrait of it for her. 

My parents refused to be presented at the 
Court of St. James, and yet had a great desire to 
see the Royal family ; so Mr. West promised to 
obtain permission for them to be present in Som- 
erset House, when the Royal family visited the 
exhibition of pictures there, previous to its being 
opened to the public. Mr. West always attended 
the King, on these occasions, to point out to his 
Majesty the pictures most worthy of his attention, 
and was always invited to breakfast with him on 
the morning that he went to Somerset House. 
During the breakfast, Mr. West obtained leave 
to admit his Quaker friends to the hall of en- 
trance, and an order was despatched to the 
guards on duty there to admit us. The com- 
manding officer was very civil and placed us so 
as to see the royal party to the best advantage. 

The King came first, then the Queen, followed 
by four princesses, and they courteously delayed 
their passage through the hall for our gratifica- 
tion. Princess Elizabeth said, loud enough for 
us to hear, that she admired the Quaker bonnet, 
and should like to wear one, a great stretch of 



28 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

politeness, we thought. The King asked Mr. 
West if the little girl were a Quaker ; I had on a 
straw bonnet. On hearing that I was, he said, 
" Tell her that if she had had on a Quaker bon- 
net I would have spoken to her." 

George III. had great fondness for Quakers, 
and removed some of their restrictions and disa- 
bilities. Their marriages were not legal until 
they were made so in his reign. The reason for 
his partiality was little known ; but I have heard 
it accounted for thus. When he was a young 
man, he had a Quaker mistress, to whom he 
w?as long faithful. She died just before his mar- 
riage, and when his courtiers supposed him to 
be sleeping quietly in his palace, the night be- 
fore his marriage, he* was travelling incog, many 
miles out of London, to take a last leave of his 
clying mistress. 

George III. was a stout, thick-set man, with a 
short neck and a red face. He wore a brown 
wig and a long frock-coat, and without the star 
on his breast he would have passed for a country 
squire. The Queen and princesses were all such 
common-looking people that they upset my child- 
ish notions of royalty. I have since learned that 
all that family were coarse, sensual, and vulgar. 
George III. did all lie co^ild to keep the morals 
of his daughters pure, but he failed entirely, not- 
withstanding his strict discipline and constant 



MRS. KNOWLES. 29 

vigilance. His last attack of insanity, from which 
he never recovered, was brought on by an inter- 
view with the Princess Amelia, on her death-bed, 
when she confessed to him her marriage, and be- 
sought him to be kind to her husband. She was 
the best of his daughters and the most beloved 
by him, and as her marriage was not a legal 
one, the King was greatly shocked by the dis- 
closure. 

While living at Islington, we had frequent 
visits from the learned and accomplished Mrs. 
Knowles. She was the widow of a physician,, 
who had left her a handsome fortune. She was 
a member of the Society of Friends, and, when a 
young woman, had an animated discussion con- 
cerning the peculiar tenets of her sect with the 
dogmatic Dr. Johnson. Their encounter must 
have been like lightning and thunder, her lively 
and brilliant remarks followed by the roar of de- 
nunciation from the Doctor. Her daring to differ 
from him, and support her opinions by argument, 
made her notorious among his admirers and his 
enemies. Her father had given her the educa- 
tion of a boy, rather than of a girl of those days; 
She was a good Greek and Latin scholar ; but 
her learning did not prevent her spending most 
of her time, after marriage, in painting and 
worsted work. Her manner of doing the latter 
was peculiar to herself, and produced so fine an 



30 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTf YEARS. 

effect, that she became famous for it, and was in- 
vited to St. James's Palace to show her work to 
the Royal family. While there, she expressed a 
strong desire to make a portrait in worsted work 
of the King, and he very good-naturedly con- 
sented to sit for it, little supposing how long it 
would take ; but her powers of conversation were 
so great, that he declared he never lost his pa- 
tience and was well amused all the time. 

The likeness proved good, and the Queen 
claimed it for her own, intending to make Mrs. 
Knowles a suitable present in return. As she 
wore a Quaker dress, jewelry would not be ac- 
ceptable. A piece of plate might be the right 
tiling, but still the Queen was at a loss what to 
choose ; so she bade one of the gentlemen in wait- 
ing to speak with Mrs. Knowles and ascertain 
what she would prefer. He did so, and she, 
being very miserly, said she preferred a sum of 
money. 

When the Queen heard this, she said, " I 
thought Mrs. Knowles was a lady, but I see she 
is only a workwoman." A certain sum was paid 
her, but she was never afterward invited to court. 
Her avarice increased upon her to such a de- 
gree, that she gave up her carriage and horses, 
her men-servants, and seeing company at her own 
house ; lived in the meanest manner, and morti- 
fied her rich relations in many ways. She loved 



MRS. KN0WLES. 31 

society, and had numerous invitations to great 
houses, where her conversation was prized by 
authors, and artists, and statesmen; but she 
often arrived with muddy feet, and looking so 
unlike a guest, that the footman would hardly 
let her enter. She had a good figure and a 
sprightly step, even when advanced in years, but 
her face was very plain. She was returning 
alone from a grand dinner-party, very late at 
night, when a well-dressed man, coming up be- 
hind her, said he had always wished to kiss a 
Quakeress and swore he would do it now. She 
said very calmly, " Wait till we get to that lamp- 
post, and then if thou wishest to kiss me thou 
shalt do so." The astonished man obeyed, and 
when the light fell on her face, he cursed her for 
an ugly hag and passed on. 

Washing cost money in London, and Mrs. 
Knowles was too miserly to be clean. When in- 
vited to meet company at our house, my mother 
would dress her in her own clothes, and feel her- 
self well rewarded by the conversation of her 
guest, who was a great politician, and clever men 
liked to talk with her. She used to say, on meet- 
ing my mother, " I know I am too dirty to suit 
thy company, but I can wear some of thy cast- 
off clothes, and look very nice." 

When on her death-bed, her rich relations, who 
were around her, were shocked at the state of 



32 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

her chamber, and tried to make it more decent. 
When she was sleeping heavily, they took off a 
very dirty counterpane and put on a clean one ; 
but on awaking, she was so distressed by it that 
they were obliged to let her die under the dirty 
one. 

Her only son inherited not only the accumu- 
lated riches of his mother, but also her miserly 
disposition, and never enjoyed a penny of his for- 
tune. 



ELIZABETH FRY. 33 



CHAPTER IY. 

ELIZABETH FRY. 

MRS. PRY, the reformer of female prisoners 
in Newgate, was the third daughter of 
John Gurney, of Earlham Hall, near Norwich, in 
England. Her family belonged to the Society 
of Friends, but she alone adhered to their rules 
and wore their dress. Mr. Gurney had a prince- 
ly fortune, and made an excellent use of it. He 
was early left a widower, with eleven children, 
and never married again. Home education, un- 
der his own supervision, was what he chose, and 
the happy results of his training showed his wis- 
dom. He lived on a large scale, but without 
ostentation. His mansion was the resort of talent 
and worth, and all were kindly received from the 
prince to the beggar. It is told of Mrs. Pry, that 
when a girl in her teens, a royal prince, son of 
George HI., was her father's guest, and having 
heard of his dissipated habits, she invited him to 
leave the gay throng in the drawing-room and ac- 
company her to the school-room, where she made 
him sit still, while she preached to him in Quar 
2* o 



34 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

ker style. He was too much affected by her dis- 
course to make fun of the interview, and nothing 
was known of it till long after. 

Many suitors were attracted by the elegant 
simplicity and high culture of the family at Earl- 
ham Hall. The stricter Quaker youths paid 
their court to Elizabeth. Among these were Mr. 
Joseph Fry, who, like the rest, was rejected, but 
not utterly discouraged, and hearing that an 
elderly friend of his was about to pay a visit to 
Earlham, he told him of this rejected suit and 
begged him to speak a good word for him. The 
friend did as desired, and on coming away, he 
asked Elizabeth what message he should carry to 
Joseph. She replied, " Tell him, he has no hope, 
but in the fickleness of woman." " Then I shall 
tell him he has every hope." And so it proved, 
he married his lovely Betsy, and transplanted her 
from the princely establishment and gay family 
party at Earlham to an old-fashioned house, in a 
dark court, in the city of London ; but this did 
not disturb the serenity of his wife's well-dis- 
ciplined mind. She believed that she had been 
led there by the dictates of that inward monitor 
whom it was her happiness to listen to and obey, 
and in her later years she used to ascribe her 
whole course of usefulness to her fellow-creatures 
to that union with Joseph Fry and her life in 
London. 



ELIZABETH FRY. 35 

She had been married many years, and was 
the mother of ten children, when her attention 
was called to the wretched state of the female 
prisoners in Newgate by some male friends who 
went there to see some criminals whom they 
knew. She was shocked to hear that three hun- 
dred women with their numerous children were 
crowded into four small rooms, without beds or 
bedding, without classification, tried and untried, 
in rags and dirt, and there they lived, cooked, 
and washed. Their wretched condition made 
them so fierce and brutal, that the governor of 
the prison entered this portion of it with reluc- 
tance, and when Mrs. Pry, accompanied by one 
other lady, wished to be admitted, he advised 
them to leave their watches outside, least they 
should be snatched from them. This they re- 
fused to do, and taking with them a quantity of 
clothing to give away they entered that Babel of 
discordant sounds. 

Their appearance produced a lull, and certain- 
ly the tall, commanding figure of Mrs. Fry, with 
her mild, benignant countenance and her sweet 
tones of voice, might well make her appear like 
some heavenly vision to those degraded women. 
She distributed the clothing, of which they stood 
so much in need, promised them some comforts, 
and spoke words of kindness and encouragement 
to them, such as they rarely, if ever, heard. 



36 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY TEAKS. 

Many years after this, I visited Newgate with 
Mrs. Fry, and witnessed the thorough reforma- 
tion that had been effected there. The female 
prisoners were classified, cleanliness and order 
prevailed, swearing and fighting had given place 
to reading and sewing, and a committee of ladies 
were constantly visiting the prison by turns. 
The morning that I was there, Mrs. Fry was to 
have her last religious exercises with sixty female 
convicts, about to embark for Botany Bay. "We 
entered a good-sized, clean room, and found them 
all seated on benches in perfect silence at the far- 
ther end of it. Mrs. Fry stood at a small table 
between her and the convicts, a few visitors like 
myself stood on either side of her. She read 
from the New Testament a few consolatory pas- 
sages, and then proposed to pray with them. 
The women rose, turned round, and kneeled be- 
side the benches ; Mrs. Fry kneeled on a hassock 
before her table, and lifted up her melodious 
voice in such a strain of tender supplication for 
help and comfort to the afflicted and sorrowful, 
as I can never forget. She merged herself in 
them, and seemed as if she were bearing them 
up on wings of love to the throne of grace. 
Such a prayer I never before heard, and never 
shall again. It was sublime, it was divine, and 
it moved all present to tears. The poor women 
Bobbed aloud. 



ELIZABETH FRY. 37 

Mrs. Fry had previously talked with each one 
of them and given them appropriate advice, and 
furnished them with employment on their long 
voyage. My mother used to dress dolls for the 
convicts' children to play with at sea. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER V. 

MILFORD HAVEN. — FRENCH SPY. — FRENCH AT FISH- 
GUARD. 

THE great success of the sperm-whale fishery 
in France, and the manufacturing of the 
best spermaceti candles ever seen in any country, 
made my father an authority in such matters. 
Many merchants consulted him, and some states- 
men thought it advisable to retain him in Eng- 
land, and induce him to prosecute the fishing 
there, instead of returning to America. The 
suit in chancery still lingered along, and he be- 
gan to listen to the proposals made to him by 
the Hon. Charles Greville, who had the care of 
his uncle Sir William Hamilton's estate on the 
banks of Milford Haven, in South Wales, and 
earnestly entreated my father to settle there. A 
visit to the place satisfied him that the port was 
well adapted to the purpose ; but there was no 
town there, and there were no mechanics capable 
of fitting out a whaling ship. 

Mr. Greville said that if Mr. Roteh would set- 
tle there a town would soon be created, and the 
trades would gather round him, and so it proved. 



MILFOED HAVEN. 39 

A large hotel was built, and Mr. Greville's in- 
fluence caused a custom-house and a post-office 
to be established there. He granted long leases 
of land, at very low rents, and houses sprang 
up like magic. My father had all the land he 
wanted for warehouses and a dwelling-house, for 
a mere nominal ground-rent, and Mr. Greville 
obtained for him all the privileges and bounties 
that he had enjoyed in France. Several new 
houses were built before he removed his fam- 
ily to Milford, and one of them, though small, 
was hired for our use until a larger one could 
be built. 

Coopers, and sailmakers, ship-carpenters, and 
all the other tradesmen necessary to my father's 
business, came and settled in Milford, on the pros- 
pect of the whale fishery being carried on from 
that port, and great was the excitement and satis- 
faction when the first vessel arrived from America 
loaded with sperm-oil. The cargo was sent round 
to London in coasting vessels, and the ship was 
immediately refitted for a voyage to the Pacific 
Ocean. I have given this account of our settle- 
ment in Wales in order to make more intelligible 
the incidents which linger in my memory and 
which I am about to relate. 

Wales being a conquered country, and the 
peasantry and yeomanry still speaking a different 
language from their conquerors, their civilization 



40 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

did not keep pace with that of England. It 
was allowed to be a hundred years behind, and 
the manners and customs of all classes were of 
course very different from those of the English. 
The Welsh nobility and gentry are very proud 
of their pedigrees, tracing back their ancestry far 
beyond the Norman conquest. Many of them 
have lost much of their ancestral possessions, but 
none of their pride, and make great efforts to 
keep up a grand appearance on small means. 

It was a great trial to my parents to leave a 
large circle of congenial friends, and the high 
state of civilization which London afforded, and 
plant themselves in a strange land and among 
such a different kind of people. Mr. Greville 
gave them letters of introduction to the first fam- 
ilies in the country, and wrote to his friends to 
interest them in us ; but still the change was a 
very painful one. 

We were no sooner packed into our small 
house, in Milford, than Mr. Greville's friends 
began to call and extend a cordial reception to 
the new-comers. This was soon followed by 
notes from several families, saying they would 
come and dine with us on a certain day. This 
was an appalling civility to persons not yet set- 
tled in their house, and no way prepared to get 
up a grand dinner. Just arrived, and entirely 
ignorant of what would be expected of them, 



MILFOED HAVEN. 41 

they thought it the queerest mode of paying at- 
tention to strangers. It must be meant for a 
civility, and it would not do to refuse it, yet it 
seemed impossible to accept it. At last my 
father thought of an excellent way of escaping 
from the dilemma. He would entertain them 
at the hotel, he would order the handsomest din- 
ner that could be procured, and the best wines, 
and not let his guests know his intentions, till 
they arrived at his house, when a servant should 
be in attendance to direct them to the hotel. 

In this way my mother was relieved of all care 
and anxiety, and the dinner gave great satisfac- 
tion to all parties. 

The Welsh nobility live on large estates and in 
very stately mansions, and their annual visits to 
London prevent their being so provincial as those 
who seldom or never visit the metropolis. The 
descendants of the most ancient families prided 
themselves on adhering to the old customs of the 
country, and disdained the idea of importing 
London fashions and manners. The introduction 
of railroads has changed all this, and the long 
journey of two hundred and seventy miles from 
Milford to London, which used to take ten days 
to perform, with our own carriage and horses, 
is now only one day's journey. The roads were 
ill made and never kept in repair, and this made 
riding on horseback a favorite mode of convey- 



42 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

ance. I have been one of a large dinner-party, 
to which every guest went on horseback, and all 
the ladies dined in their cloth habits and rode 
home many miles at night. Those who possess 
large landed estates look down upon the inhab- 
itants of country towns, and consider it a con- 
descension to admit to their houses the lawyer, 
physician, or merchant, though often much bet- 
ter educated than the country squire. 

I am thus particular in describing the social 
state of South Wales because it was the scene of 
many events which will be better understood in 
consequence. 

I have mentioned a- visit which my parents 
made to South Wales, ^before settling there, and 
will now relate some particulars of it which are 
worthy of notice. 

It so happened of all the persons who escaped 
from France, by hiding themselves in the hold of 
my father's ship, when he sailed in her from the 
port of Dunkirk, only one of them ever crossed 
his path again, and that one was a handsome 
cabin-boy, transformed into a country squire, 
married to an heiress, and living on one of her 
estates. When my father made his tour of ob- 
servation into Wales, before settling there, he 
took his wife and his little girl with him and 
spent several weeks at the Castle Inn, in Haver- 
fordwest. There he did a great deal of writing, 



FRENCH SPY. 43 

and had letters and papers lying about with his 
name and his address in Dunkirk on them. 
These circumstances, with his occasionally speak- 
ing to his wife and child in French, raised sus- 
picions that he was a French spy, and a para- 
graph to that effect appeared in a country news- 
paper, and fell under the eye of the squire. 
When he read the names of Rotch, and Dun- 
kirk, he began to think that the supposed spy 
might be the benevolent Quaker who had helped 
him to escape from France ; so he forthwith 
mounted his dapple-gray steed, and appeared at 
the Castle Inn. The recognition was, of course, 
all on one side, for no trace was left of the young 
cabin-boy, but the meeting was very pleasant and 
cordial on both sides. He told my father that he 
was suspected of being a French spy, and that 
the country was in such fear of French invasion 
that he might be arrested, if proper precautions 
were not taken. The squire, being a well-known 
magistrate, soon put an end to all the false re- 
ports about his benefactor, and persuaded him 
and his wife to become his guests at his country- 
seat, where he introduced them to his wife and 
two maiden sisters, all of whom became, in after 
years, our dear and intimate friends. Many 
were the happy Christmas days that we spent 
under that roof, and when, some years after, by 
my father's advice, and through his interest, the 



44 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

squire became the collector of customs at Mil- 
ford, the intercourse between his family and ours 
was constant and agreeable. 

The fear of French invasion was not un- 
founded. Napoleon kept an army at Boulogne, 
and a flotilla of boats to bring them across the 
Channel, and he only waited a favorable oppor- 
tunity to invade England, march to London, and 
dictate terms of peace from St. James's Palace. 
This was his plan, but an English fleet kept in 
the Channel prevented the attempt for many 
weeks. At length the fleet sailed out of the 
Channel, and Bonaparte thought that the long- 
wished for time had arrived. He had previously 
despatched a few companies of his poorest sol- 
diers to make a landing in South Wales in order 
to test the loyalty of the Welsh peasantry, whom 
he falsely supposed to be disaffected towards the 
English government. They were gone long 
enough to effect their purpose, when a terrible 
storm arose which drove the English fleet back 
into the Channel, and made it impossible for the* 
French army to embark. The unfortunate men 
sent to make friends with the Welsh landed 
at a small fishing-town called Fishguard, on a 
little sandy beach, surrounded by high cliffs. 
The population was small, and not a soldier in 
the place, but the inhabitants went to the edge 
of the cliff to look down. Half of these were wo- 



FRENCH AT FISHGUAED. 45 

men, dressed, according to custom, in men's, hats 
and scarlet cloaks. The French, mistaking them 
for soldiers, thought their case was hopeless, laid 
down their arms, and surrendered themselves 
prisoners of war to the women of Fishguard. A 
militia regiment, under the command of Lord 
Cawdor, did arrive in time to take their arms, 
and march them to Milford, whence they were 
sent by water to one. of the prisons used for 
French prisoners. 

The news of the landing of the French spread 
like wildfire ; people ran for miles, screaming it all 
the way they went ; men on horseback galloped 
through the land to give the alarm ; volunteers, 
who had been drilled into soldiers, for just such 
an emergency, thought their time was come for 
deeds of prowess ; armed forces of all descrip- 
tions rushed to Fishguard, and there learned that 
a handful of Frenchmen had surrendered to the 
old women of Fishguard, and their valor was not 
needed. 

I have heard my mother say that she and her 
husband were awakened, in the dead of night, by 
a man calling out, under their window, " Get up, 
get up, the French have landed, and you will all 
be murdered in your beds." My father opened 
the window and asked where they had landed. 
" At Fishguard," was the reply. " How far off 
is that?'" "Twenty miles." My father re- 



46 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

turned to bed, saying, " They cannot be here be- 
fore morning ; so we had better get all the sleep 
we can to-night, for there is no knowing where 
we may be to-morrow night." They did sleep 
quietly that night, and the next day heard that 
the invaders were all made prisoners, and they 
saw them marched through Milford to be em- 
barked. So ended Napoleon's grand threat of 
invading England. 



LADY HAMILTON. 47 



CHAPTER VI. 

LADY HAMILTON. — LORD NELSON. — CASTLE HALL 
AND ITS COMPANY. 

WHEN Sir William Hamilton returned to 
England, from his embassy at the court 
of Naples, he determined to visit his large estate 
on the banks of Milford Haven, and see the new 
town which had grown up so suddenly under 
the good management of his nephew, the Hon. 
Charles Greville. Lady Hamilton chose to ac- 
company her husband. On hearing this, Lord 
Nelson became very desirous of examining the 
celebrated harbor of Milford; so a party was 
formed for a tour in Wales. Lady Nelson was 
left behind, and her faithless husband devoted 
himself to the notorious Lady Hamilton, as if he 
had been her affianced lover. 

Lady Hamilton began her career as a poor 
girl, selling matches in the streets of London. 
Happening to pass under the window of Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, he was so struck with her 
beauty, that he called her in, and engaged her to 
sit for her likeness the next day. Having made 
a charming picture of her, in that character, he 



48 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

found her form so faultless, that he made her his 
model for other pictures, and at last exhibited her 
to his fellow artists, and even to amateurs and 
patrons of art, in chosen attitudes of his arrang- 
ing, and great was the admiration she excited. 
One of the spectators fell in love with her beauty, 
and made her his mistress. Intoxicated by the 
change from poverty to luxury, she became very 
extravagant, and the income of her lover would 
not suffice for her expensive pleasures. He was 
therefore well pleased when she left him for Sir 
William Hamilton, then Minister in Naples. 

The beautiful match girl now became a very 
fine lady, and was delighted with the idea of go* 
ing to Naples and living with a titled ambassador. 
She had not been long there, when she persuaded 
her infatuated lover to make her his lawful wife. 
After this she was presented at that corrupt 
court, and became the intimate friend of the li- 
centious Queen of Naples. During her residence 
there, Lord Nelson came, with the English fleet, 
into that bay so famous for its beauty. The na- 
val hero soon became violently enamored of the 
charming Lady Hamilton ; she too was in love, 
and for the first time. 

Parties and balls on board of Lord Nelson's 
ship were continually given, to please Lady 
Hamilton. One day, when she was at a dinner- 
party there, a naval officer drew his sword, and 



LADY HAMILTON. — LORD NELSON. 49 

showing her the spots of blood on it, boasted of 
how many Frenchmen it had killed. Instead of 
being disgusted at this brutal conduct, she kissed 
the sword and passed it round, requesting every 
one to do the same ; but it stopped at a young 
English traveller, who indignantly refused to 
touch it. 

There was, at this time, a mutiny on board the 
fleet, and several sailors were hung at the yard- 
arms of their ships. Lady Hamilton, with a 
party of her friends, went out in boats to see 
the executions. 

Her amiable old husband had neither eyes nor 
ears for her intrigues, and always behaved as if 
he considered her intimacy with Lord Nelson as 
an affair of pure friendship, in which he partici- 
pated. He certainly did share in the love-letters, 
written to Lady Hamilton by Lord Nelson, when 
he was fighting the French, for he read some of 
them to my father, and I well remember his re- 
peating the first sentence, in one of them, written 
the day after a sea-fight. It ran thus : " My 
dearest, dearest, dearest Emma! last night we 
sent five hundred Frenchmen's souls to hell." I 
am not certain of the number specified, but every 
other word I am sure of. Such was the style of 
correspondence between the match-girl and the 
sailor. 

When Sir William Hamilton aad his party ar- 



50 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

rived in Milford, accompanied by the great naval 
commander, the nobility and gentry for miles 
round flocked to see him, and pay their respects 
to the hero of the Nile. 

A public dinner was given to him, at which 
Lady Hamilton chose to be present ; she sat next 
to him, cut up his meat, which the loss of an arm 
prevented him from doing, and fed him with tit- 
bits from her own plate. She had a fine voice 
and would sing sailors' songs and verses written 
in praise of the great admiral, at public dinners, 
whilst her doting old husband sat by admiring 
her. When I saw her in 1802, her face was still 
beautiful, but she had grown fat and her figure 
was spoiled. Short waists and narrow skirts 
were then in fashion. The French had intro- 
duced the custom of wearing as little clothing as 
possible, and making that little look like the dra- 
pery of an ancient Greek statue. The weather 
was very warm when Lady Hamilton was in Mil- 
ford, and she walked about the town in two gar- 
ments only, showing her shape most indecently. 

My mother had resolved to take no notice of 
Lady Hamilton, and being on the eve of her con- 
finement, she excused herself from calling on her. 
But that bold woman was resolved that it should 
not be said that Mrs. Rotch would not receive her ; 
so one very warm day, when all our doors and 
windows stood open, she walked into our draw- 



LORD NELSON. 51 

ing-room, where my mother and I were sitting, 
and greeted us very familiarly. Though I was 
but a child, I was struck with the coldness of my 
mother's reception, and wondered that she was 
not more cordial to such a lovely and fascinating 
guest. 

Lord Nelson was very ordinary in his appear- 
ance ; lean and sallow, his face much wrinkled 
and his hair very thin. He was proud of the loss 
of his arm, and always wore his coat-sleeve 
empty. When I was one day standing by him, 
at our house, with my eyes fixed on that empty 
sleeve, he said, " Look at it well, and then you 
will always remember me by my one arm." Be- 
ing in Milford on the first of August, the anni- 
versary of the battle of the Nile, he instituted a 
boat-race to be held annually, on that day, and 
Lord Cawdor offered to furnish a silver cup to be 
run for every year. My father's yacht won it 
three times, and then he withdrew from the con- 
test, to give others a chance of winning. On 
these occasions our house was filled with com- 
pany and we had gay times. 

Sir William's estates all descended to his neph- 
ews, whether by entail or by his own choice, I do 
not know ; but he left very little to his widow, and 
Lord Nelson did not add to her income, but made 
himself ridiculous by a request in his will that 
the government would grant her a pension. The 



52 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

public could see no reason why the mistress of 
Lord Nelson should be so provided for, but the 
friends of the admiral said, she deserved it for 
having obtained, through her intimacy with the 
Queen of Naples, some valuable political informa- 
tion for Lord Nelson, when he was commanding 
a fleet in the Mediterranean. Whether this was 
true or not, her services were never recognized, 
and she died, in great poverty, in France. 

Lord Nelson gave a full length portrait of him- 
self, in oils, to the hotel at which he stayed in Mil- 
ford, and which was named for him. The picture 
hangs there still, though the house has changed 
hands several times. 

Milford enjoyed many years of prosperity un- 
der the management of Mr. Greville. Several 
men-of-war were launched from its dock-yard, 
daily packets were established between Milford 
and Waterford, carrying mails and passengers. 
Militia regiments were quartered there, and the 
haven was seldom without a vessel of the navy 
anchored in its roads. 

My father was engaged in building a house 
large enough for his increasing family, when an 
estate in the neighborhood, of one hundred and 
eighty acres, with a large house on it, called 
Castle Hall, was offered for sale, at a very moder- 
ate price, and he became the purchaser and re- 
moved his family into it. We were all so much 



CASTLE HALL AND ITS COMPANY. 53 

pleased with our country life, and my father took 
so much delight in farming the land, and im- 
proving the pleasure-grounds, that the new house 
in Milford was no inducement to leave it, and we 
children were rather glad when it was accidentally 
destroyed by fire. 

Seven acres of ornamental grounds and gar- 
dens gave my father ample scope for his love of 
improving and embellishing the place ; he made 
ugly slopes into pretty terraces, formed new 
land in front of the house, built an orangery 
eighty feet long and twenty feet high, entirely of 
iron and glass, and filled it with the finest or- 
ange, lemon, and citron-trees from a celebrated 
orangery in a distant county, sold on the death 
of the owner. He made pineries too, — three 
houses, hot, hotter, and hottest, — in which three 
hundred fine, large pine-apples were produced in 
one year. The climate was very mild. We had 
monthly roses blooming out of doors all winter, 
and a hedge of laurestine, which enclosed a rose- 
garden, was always in full bloom in February. 

All these improvements, with the high cultiva- 
tion of English gardening, not usually practised 
in Wales, made Castle Hall a show-place. The 
orangery and the pinery were a great novelty in 
Pembrokeshire, and I remember being very tired 
of showing them to our visitors. 

The head-gardener would have complained of 



54 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the trouble of showing the place to strangers, had 
he not been paid by them for doing it. We 
might well keep the grounds in high order, when 
a woman could be hired to weed all day for 
twelve cents, and a laboring man for less than a 
quarter of a dollar. 

My father's hospitality knew no bounds, and 
our house was filled with the greatest variety of 
visitors. For months together we never sat down 
to a meal alone. Besides exchanging visits once 
or twice a year with the gentry and nobility of 
the country, we had no objection to the society 
of the best people in the country towns. After 
the packets ran from Milford to Waterford, we 
often had the company of the Irish members of 
Parliament, on their way to and from London. 
My father had travelled in Ireland and been treat- 
ed so hospitably, that he was glad to pay every 
attention to those who brought letters from his 
friends in that country. 

The long war between France and England 
prevented the English from travelling on the 
Continent, and a tour through North and South 
Wales was an agreeable substitute. Many tour- 
ists came, introduced to my father by his London 
friends ; those among them who were artists 
were especially welcome to my brothers, who en- 
joyed sketching with them the numerous pictur- 
esque castles and ruins to be found in our neigh- 



CASTLE HALL AND ITS COMPANY. 55 

borhood. Every Quaker made our house his 
home, every American traveller was doubly wel- 
come, and many visited us before the war of 
1812. Added to all this variety of guests, there 
was still another set, entirely distinct from them, 
who were more to us socially than all the rest. 
These were very genteel, well-bred people, who, 
for some reason or other, wished to live retired 
and very economically for a few years. They oc- 
cupied three cottages belonging to my father, and 
bordering on our pleasure-grounds, and were, of 
course, our nearest neighbors, and became our 
most intimate friends. My father bought those 
cottages on purpose to prevent their being inhab- 
ited by exceptionable characters, and he was very 
careful as to whom he let them. 

All these various classes of visitors made an 
immense circle of acquaintances, and we some- 
times met with strange experiences among them, 
one of which will be found in the next chapter. 



56 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HERBERT FAMILY. — SAILOR-BOY. — WANDERING GIRL. 
— ORLEANS FAMILY. 

HOSPITALITY has its dangers, as well as 
its pleasures, and so my parents found, 
when a guest, invited only to dine, was confined 
to their house for three months by acute rheu- 
matism, and a determination to continue in good 
quarters. We were then living at Castle Hall. 

Returning home from London in the mail- 
coach, my father met with an Irish artist, named 
Herbert, whose conversation amused him much, 
and finding that he took small full-length like- 
nesses, in water colors, he invited him to his 
house to make a picture of my mother. 

Herbert came and spent a month in making 
frightful likenesses of the whole family, and was 
a very acceptable guest to the younger members 
of it, for he aided us in getting up private theat- 
ricals, and gave us many pleasant evenings, read- 
ing aloud to us the best English comedies. A 
year after this, he was on his way to Ireland with 
his wife and daughter, and they were all invited 
to dine at our house. On rising from the table, 



HERBERT FAMILY. 57 

Mrs. Herbert was seized with violent pains in her 
limbs, and could hardly move. My mother kindly 
advised her being put to bed and having hot 
fomentations, little thinking that her suffering 
guests would be the torment of the house for 
three months to come, but so it fell out. 

Mr. Herbert had married his wife for her 
handsome figure, without any knowledge of her 
character, and found himself united to a vixen, 
who tyrannized over him and his children in the 
most remorseless way. He was very good-tem- 
pered, devoted to his art, and yielded to her rule 
for the sake of peace. Her violent temper, ex- 
asperated by the pain of acute rheumatism, made 
her so exacting and unreasonable that the de- 
voted attendance of her husband and daughter, 
and of our excellent servants, could not soothe 
or satisfy her. Our family physician attended 
her, and. prescribed a low diet, but this she 
secretly evaded. Bountiful dinners used to be 
sent up to her daughter Lucy, a girl of fourteen, 
whom she would not allow to leave her room, 
and of these the mother ate by for the larger 
part ; when she was satisfied, the plate was put 
before her pug-dog, and what he left, was all 
that Lucy had. This had gone on for a long 
while, and the poor child was half starved be- 
fore my mother discovered it; when she did, 
she required Lucy's presence at the dinner-table, 

3* 



58 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

and there she always came until, one day, she 
sent word she could not come. My sister, about 
the same age as Lucy, was sent up to know the 
reason why, and came down in tears, to say that 
the poor girl's ears had been pulled so violently 
by her mother, that they were bleeding, and she 
could not come down. The presence of Mr. Her- 
bert alone prevented the explosion of our wrath 
and indignation, but we were all much excited 
against this unnatural mother. My father told 
Mr. Herbert that he ought not to allow his 
daughter to be so ill-treated ; the poor man said 
he could not help it, that Lucy was ill-tempered 
and obstinate, and her mother had never loved 
her, because she was so ugly. This was to us a 
new view of maternal feelings. 

Soon after all supplies of hearty food were cut 
off Mrs. Herbert's severe pains left her, and the 
fever subsided ; but she still kept her bed, and 
slept so much by day, that she often lay awake 
at night, and then she would not let Lucy sleep, 
but kept her standing by her bedside, and when 
her sleepy eyes closed, she would pinch her to 
keep her awake. We had observed black and 
blue spots on Lucy's arms, but it was not till she 
ventured to confide her griefs to my sister, that 
we knew how she came by them. One day on 
seeing my sister kiss her mother, Lucy burst in- 
to tears, and said she never had kissed her moth- 



HERBERT FAMILY. 59 

er, and should no more think of it, than of kiss- 
ing the Queen. Treated with kindness, for the 
first time in her life, Lucy became a new being. 
Talents were developed that astonished her fa- 
ther. Seeing me draw heads in crayon, she bor- 
rowed my materials and made a very tolerable 
likeness of me. Seeing my sister write verses, 
she tried to do the same, and succeeded so well 
that her father could not believe the verses to be 
hers ; he was sure she had copied them from 
some book ; but when she wrote some lines, im- 
promptu, on an event that had just happened, he 
was obliged to give up the idea inculcated by his 
wife, that Lucy was the worst and most stupid of 
children. He now thought it worth while to 
give her lessons in drawing, with a view to her 
future maintenance ; but her mother interrupted 
them, and would not let Lucy perform the work 
which her father required of her. As soon as he 
left the house she would make Lucy leave her 
drawing and sit in her room, and then tell her 
father that Lucy left it voluntarily. The poor 
child dare not gainsay her mother, but one of her 
young friends told Mr. Herbert the truth about 
it, and he ceased scolding her. 

Mrs. Herbert had been well enough for a 
month to pass most of her time down stairs, 
to take drives, and to walk about the grounds, 
before any sign of departure was made. My 



60 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

mother bore the trial without a complaint, but 
the patience of the servants was nearly exhausted 
before the three Herberts, with their lap-dog and 
canary-bird, departed for Ireland. One Satur- 
day afternoon, in January, they embarked on 
board the sailing-packet, which ran between Mil- 
ford and Waterford, well provisioned by my 
mother for their short voyage. Mr. Herbert ex- 
pressed his sincere gratitude, and Lucy was 
heart-broken at leaving her only friends, but 
Mrs. Herbert seemed only provoked at having to 
go away at all. Our carriage took them to Mil- 
ford, and my father saw them on board the pack- 
et, and privately urged upon Mr. Herbert the 
necessity of separating Lucy from her mother. 

Did not we talk them over that evening, and 
lament over the fate of that unhappy girl ! As 
the next day was Sunday, the housemaid was 
excused from doing anything to the two rooms 
which they had occupied, and which were in such 
a plight as to require whitewashes and painters 
to make them decent. A very unusual sight for 
that part of South Wales awaited us the next 
morning ; the ground was covered with snow, and 
the storm continuing, no one went to church. 
We were all in the library reading or writing, and 
enjoying such tranquillity as we had not had for 
three months, when on looking out of the win- 
dow my brother exclaimed, " Here they all are 



HERBERT FAMILY. 61 

coming back." We thought he was joking, but 
it was too true ; there was father, mother, daugh- 
ter, dog, and canary-bird, all ploughing through 
the snow up to our door ! We swallowed down 
our chagrin, and tried to receive them hospitably. 
We were assisted in this by the real regret ex- 
pressed by Mr. Herbert, and by the sufferings of 
Lucy, whose hands were nearly frozen by carry- 
ing the bird-cage. They told us that the storm 
had driven back the packet, and the tide was so 
low they could not land at Milford, nor indeed 
anywhere but on a long point of land belonging 
to our estate. This remarkable necessity helped 
to reconcile us to their return, and the house- 
maid was glad enough that nothing had been 
done to their rooms. 

They stayed with us only a few days and then 
took lodgings at Milford, as Mrs. Herbert was 
afraid to try another voyage at that inclement 
season. All my mother's servants and children 
had been strictly charged not to speak of Mrs. 
Herbert's faults to any one out of the house ; 
so the inhabitants of Milford were well disposed 
towards them, but they had not been there long 
before an old friend of ours said to my mother, 
" What crime have you ever committed, that you 
should have such an infliction as three months 
of Mrs. Herbert's company ? Why, she is a per- 
fect Xantippe ! How could you bear with her 



62 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

for three months ? The woman in whose house ' 
they are has given them warning to quit, on ac- 
count of Mrs. Herbert's treatment of her daugh- 
ter. She struck her with a carving-knife and cut 
a gash in her cheek. All the town is in a ferment 
about it." 

When the spring came the Herberts went to 
Ireland, and Lucy was placed in a convent, but 
that dreadful life of inaction and monotony was 
worse for her mind than her mother's ill treat- 
ment ; she became insane and was removed to an 
asylum in Dublin, where she died in a few years. 
She wrote to my sister, from the convent, very 
interesting letters, though containing illusions 
which showed her mind to be unsound. She 
begged my sister to procure for her a passage to 
America, in one of her father's ships, as she had 
received a Divine command to go to that country 
and preach the importance and efficacy of love. 
All sectarian differences were to be done away in 
that new land of freedom, and the gospel of love 
was to be the only doctrine preached. A beauti- 
ful idea this for an ill-educated Roman Catholic 
girl to originate. She never could have heard it 
where she was. 

I remember, when living in Milford, seeing my 
mother in the kitchen talking with a very pretty 
young sailor, who said he belonged to a vessel in 
the harbor, bound to New York, and hearing 



SAILOR-BOY. 63 

that an American family resided in this house, 
he called to offer to carry out letters for them. 
An extraordinary piece of courtesy thought my 
mother. She asked him what brought him on 
shore. — " To get water for the ship from a 
neighboring spring; the boat's crew are filling 
casks there now." Observing his delicate white 
hands, and struck with his good language and 
gentle voice, she suspected him to be a runaway 
school-boy, and taxed him with it. He blush- 
ingly denied it. She said those hands do not 
look as though they had ever handled tarry ropes. 
He pulled down the sleeves of his jacket to hide 
them and looked embarrassed. She asked him 
if his mother knew where he was, and he hesi- 
tatingly said she did not. On this my mother 
depicted the anguish of a parent under such cir- 
cumstances, and exhorted him to write to her 
before he slept, and tell her where he was going, 
which he promised to do. By way of seeing him 
again my mother said she would write by him to 
her friends in America, and he promised to call 
for her letter. Several days passed and he did 
not appear ; but we heard a strange report from 
the neighboring town that a young lady, in sail- 
or's clothes, had been found on board an American 
vessel in the harbor, and that a gentleman had 
arrived, travelling post, with four horses, had gone 
on board the vessel and brought off a lady whom 



64 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

he carried away with him. The mystery of my 
mother's sailor-boy was solved, and she soon re- 
ceived a letter from the runaway girl, thanking 
her for the good advice she had given her, and 
saying, that the letter she wrote to her mother, 
expecting to sail before it was received, had been 
the means of saving her from a ridiculous adven- 
ture, of which she was now heartily ashamed. 
She proved to be of a highly respectable family in 
Bristol, whom my mother knew. There was no 
love in the case, it was merely the freak of a 
young person who was tired of a very monoto- 
nous life. 

I know a somewhat similar case in the family 

of my friend E B . The youngest of 

seven daughters fancied herself less loved and less 
cared for than her sisters, and, in a fit of discon- 
tent, walked off one fine morning from her luxuri- 
ous home, and without purse or scrip, or any defi- 
nite plan, wandered on till dark, enjoying the idea 
of the sensation her disappearance would create 
at home. She applied for a lodging at the house 
of a small farmer, but was told they did not take 
in trampers. This surprised her, for she had read 
of heroines in distress who always received kind- 
ness from strangers. It was a warm night, and 
she laid down on some straw she found in a shed 
and slept till morning. She arose very hungry 
but walked on till she came to another small 



ORLEANS FAMILY. 65 

house, where, after asking her many questions, 
she was given a very good breakfast. When she 
rose to go, she found herself a prisoner ; the fam- 
ily had discovered who she was, and she was de- 
tained, not very unwillingly, until a brother and 
sister arrived in their close carriage. to take her 
home. Her desire to create a sensation in the 
dull life of the great house, was fully gratified by 
the accounts she heard of the alarm of her fam- 
ily, and the active search made for her all night. 
She fared the better for this escapade, and more 
care was taken to promote her happiness. 

When girls have finished their school educa- 
tion, and have no inclination to pursue their 
studies, they should be provided with some ne- 
cessary and constant employment to save them 
from the ennui which led to both the absurd en- 
terprises above related. 

During the exile of the Orleans family, two 
brothers of Louis Philippe made the tour of 
Wales, and brought letters of introduction to my 
father, then living in Milford. He gave them a 
dinner, and as my parents had been in Frai .ce 
during the troubles that drove them into exile, 
they had much interesting conversation together. 
I was then ten years old, and had been reading 
in French Le Theatre $ Education of Madame 
de Genlis, and was greatly excited by seeing the 
children whom she educated, the very Theodore 



66 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

whom I had read of. I kept whispering to my 
mother, " Ask about Madame de Genlis." At 
last she did inquire after her, and I well remem- 
ber the answer of the Due de Montpensier. " I 
owe much to that artful woman." I was disap- 
pointed and shocked, for I thought if he owed 
her much he need not speak ill of her. 

The Due de Montpensier was in a consump- 
tion, and died not long after his tour in Wales. 

Madame de Genlis lived to old age, and passed 
her last years as a boarder in a convent several 
miles from Paris. She used to boast that she 
could do twenty things, by any one of which she 
could earn a living, and to say that in an age 
of continual revolutions every one should be so 
prepared. 






CRABBE. 67 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CRABBE. — BUXTON. — JOANNA BAILLIE. 

A CURIOUS circumstance in the life of Crabbe 
the poet, not mentioned in his biography, 
is connected with the inhabitants of one of my 
father's cottages. A widow lady and her two 
daughters lived there several years, and were 
very intimate with our family. One of the ladies 
was engaged to the poet, and was jilted by him 
when on the point of being married and having 
the wedding-breakfast at our house. 

The beginning of the affair is as remarkable as 
its termination ; so I will relate the whole. Miss 
Charlotte P., the accomplished daughter of a 
wealthy owner of mines in Cornwall, interested 
herself in those unhappy creatures whose lives 
are spent underground, and finding among them 
a romantic case of love and constancy, she sent 
the story to Mr. Crabbe, the popular poet of the 
day, considering it especially suited to his style 
of composition. He was pleased with the narra- 
tive and charmed by the letter which accom- 
panied it. A very agreeable correspondence fol- 
lowed, which lasted several months. Miss P. was 



68 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

engaged to be married, and her affianced was 
often at the house, and always read Crabbe's let- 
ters to her. He thought them nothing less than 
love-letters, and advised her to drop the corres- 
pondence. She laughed at the idea, and believed 
he had a wife living ; her lover thought he was a 
widower, and insisted upon it that he was mak- 
ing love to Miss P. She would not agree to that, 
but was very ready to drop the correspondence. 
The very next letter from the aged poet was a 
declaration of love, and a proposal to visit her ! 
Great was the rallying and joking which Miss P. 
had to endure. She was provoked with herself 
and the poet, and wished she had never sent him 
the story of the miner. She begged a friend who 
was staying with her, Miss Charlotte R., to write 
to Mr. Crabbe, and inform him of her engage- 
ment. The friend did so in the most kind and 
flattering way, and received a very remarkable 
answer. 

Mr. Crabbe was so much pleased with the 
friend's letter, that he transferred his proposals 
from the first Charlotte to the second ; he was 
sure they were kindred spirits, and as he had not 
seen either lady, it would make no difference to 
him ! This was too good a joke to be kept secret, 
and a large family party were greatly diverted by 
it. After all sorts of fun had been made of it, 
Charlotte the second was observed to look very 



CRABBE. 69 

grave, and not to join in the diversion of the par- 
ty. She gave them a second fit of astonishment 
by accepting the poet's offer, and appointing a 
meeting with him at the house of her aunt, in a 
neighboring county. They met, were mutually 
pleased, and parted betrothed to each other. 

On her return home we were soon informed of 
her engagement to Mr. Crabbe, but were charged 
not to mention it before her mother. " Why 
not," was of course asked, and her reply was, 
" Because my mother is so old-fashioned that she 
would call my dear bard my stveetheart, and talk 
about courtship, and you know I could not bear 
that ; it would be insupportable." 

With all this nonsense she was sincerely at- 
tached to Mr. Crabbe, and kept up a brisk corres- 
pondence with him. At first she would read 
parts of his letters to me, and talk incessantly of 
him and his poems. She was very proud of her 
engagement to so celebrated a poet. After some 
months had elapsed, a time was fixed for the 
marriage, and then it was deferred by Mr. Crabbe 
for some slight reason. My father wrote to the 
" dear bard," and invited him to stay at his house 
when he should come to be married to Miss C. 
R., but received no reply. Charlotte looked un- 
happy, but still her preparations went on. I was 
asked to make up the wedding favors, which were 
bows of white satin ribbon, edged round with nar- 



70 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

row silver fringe ; the white gloves were bought 
which were to be given to the wedding-guests ; 
our cook had made the wedding-cake ; when we 
were startled by the news that the match was 
broken off, and Charlotte was in fits. 

It appeared afterwards that Crabbe's grown up 
sons convinced him of the folly of his conduct ; 
he had long repented of his sudden engagement, 
and had tried by his correspondence so to dis- 
please the lady, as to make her break it off. She 
was resolved to have the eclat of marrying a cel- 
ebrated poet, and would take no hints to the con- 
trary. She was also in love with her old bard, 
and never recovered from her chagrin and sor- 
row. She died in a few years, and her family 
always believed that her life was shortened by 
this affair. 

My most intimate friend from childhood to old 
age was a Miss EL, who resided near London, and 
in her middle age she formed a great friendship 
for Mr. Crabbe. He was rector of a parish at 
Trowbridge, a few miles from the city of Bath, 
where Miss H. spent part of every winter and had 
much of her friend's company. Happening to be 
in Bath, I was invited to a ceremonious breakfast 
given by Miss H., and was much pleased with the 
idea of meeting several literary characters, and 
among them Mr. Crabbe ; but before the day 
came, I was earnestly requested to stay away 



CRABBE. 71 

from that breakfast. Mr. Crabbe could not meet 
a person so intimately connected with the lady he 
had jilted. This was soon after that unpleasant 
affair. Many years afterwards we became very 
good friends, and it happened thus : — 

I was staying at the house of Miss H., near 
London, when Crabbe was expected to make his 
annual visit. I offered to go away, but my friend 
would not hear of it ; she was . determined that 
her two most intimate friends should know and 
like each other. He was in London, and Miss H. 
was to bring him out hi her carriage, and she 
made me go into town with her. When we 
stopped at his lodgings, the old gentleman clam- 
bered into the carriage as though every joint 
was stiffened by age. When at last he plumped 
down on the seat and looked around him, my 
friend introduced me. He started as if elec- 
trified. I said, " I am very happy to see Mr. 
Crabbe " ; he replied very crossly, " Yes, we al- 
ways like to see those we have heard a great deal 
about." — "It is Mr. Crabbe the poet that I am 
glad to see." — " ! I thank you for that," and 
he seized my hand and shook it heartily. In a 
few days we had talked over the whole affair of 
Miss Charlotte, and he ended by saying, " I know 
I behaved very badly, but I should have done 
worse if I had married her." 

At the same house where I met Mr. Crabbe I 



72 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

used frequently to see that honest statesman, 
Fowell Buxton. A grand physique corresponded 
to his noble mind, and his powerful frame set off 
to advantage the gentleness of his domestic char- 
acter. I saw him the very day that he risked his 
life by seizing and holding a mad dog that was 
carrying danger and dismay into a populous 
street. I remember my friend's examining his 
hands to see if there were any scratch on them 
by which the poison might have entered. 

My parents were acquainted with the grand- 
mother of Mr. Buxton, and used to hear her give 
very entertaining accounts of visits she received 
from George III. and his family when they were 
in the habit of going every summer to Weymouth 
for sea-bathing. Mrs. Buxton had a fine country- 
house without the town, and lived there in ease 
and affluence. The king took a fancy to honor 
her and amuse himself by dining, not with her, but 
at her house, once during his stay at Weymouth. 
The queen and princesses chose to accompany 
him, so, although the king ate nothing but beef- 
steak, a luxurious dinner must be prepared for 
the royal ladies. Mrs. Buxton never knew when 
they were coming till the morning of the day 
chosen by his Majesty, and as he required a very 
early dinner it was no easy matter to be prepared 
for him and his family. The grandchildren of 
Mrs. Buxton said they fared sumptuously every 



BUXTON. 73 

day during the King's stay in Weymouth, until 
his visit was over, for they ate up the good things 
kept in readiness for the royal party. 

On one of his visits the King came a little be- 
fore the dinner-hour, and took a fancy to go over 
Mrs. Buxton's nice house. She hoped that he 
meant only the lower floor, for all her chambers 
were in dire confusion, every member of the 
family having dressed in great haste for the occa- 
sion. No one could precede the King, and, to 
her dismay, up stairs he went. There was a 
housemaids' closet in sight, and into it had run 
two housemaids, to avoid being seen. The King 
perceived that the door moved a little, and he 
attempted to open it ; the women held on to it, 
resolved not to be seen ; but when it occurred to 
them that they were resisting their King, they 
suddenly let go, and his Majesty narrowly escaped 
falling backward. He laughed, and went on, 
looking into every room and praising the house. 

In those days, Eoyalty was never waited on by 
hired menials, nor could a subject sit at the same 
table with the King's family ; so the hostess stood 
beside the Queen all through the dinner, and her 
grandchildren waited on her guests. They had 
funny times rehearsing as footmen, and learning 
how to change plates and hand the liquor. It 
would seem to us a very doubtful honor thus to 
entertain crowned heads. 

4 



74 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Another celebrated person whom I used to 
meet at the house of Miss H.,and with whom I 
have often dined at her own modest mansion in 
Hampstead, was Joanna Baillie. She was past 
fifty when I first saw her, and appeared an old 
lady to me, then in my teens. She dressed like 
an aged person, and with scrupulous neatness. 
She lived with a sister who looked older still, 
because she had not the vivacity of Joanna, and 
was only distinguished for the amiability with 
which she bore being outshone by her more 
gifted relative. 

Miss Baillie, according to the English custom, 
took the title of Mrs. Joanna Baillie, on passing 
her fiftieth birthday. She gave the prettiest and 
the pleasantest dinners, and presided at them 
with peculiar grace and tact, always attentive to 
the wants of her guests, and yet keeping up a 
lively conversation the while. She took such 
pleasure in writing poetry, and especially in her 
plays on the Passions, that she said, " If no one 
ever read them, I should find my happiness in 
writing them." 

Though she was young when she left her 
native land, she never lost her Scotch accent. 
I thought it made her conversation only the more 
piquant. She was full of anecdote and curious 
facts about remarkable people. I only recollect 
her telling one of Lord Byron being obliged, by 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 75 

politeness, to escort her and her sister to the 
opera, and her perceiving that he was provoked 
beyond measure at being there with them, and 
that he made faces as he sat behind them. 



76 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LADY MACWORTH. 

AN acquaintance of twenty years with the 
subject of the following story makes me 
certain of all the facts as here given. 

There lived in the town of Swansea, in South 
Wales, a widow lady, with one daughter, who was 
a great beauty, very high-spirited, and somewhat 
spoiled by indulgence. At seventeen she was the 
toast of the whole county, to use the phrase of 
the day, and surrounded by admirers and lovers. 
A certain Baronet, possessed of a charming coun- 
try-seat in the vicinity of the town, fell violently 

in love with Miss M . She refused him ; but 

he would not take no for an answer, and perse- 
cuted her with attentions. She loved no one else, 
and her mother favored his suit. Young as she 
was, and under the influence of an ambitious 
mother, she yet had an idea that she ought to 
love the man she married, and for a long time 
she persisted in rejecting Sir Herbert Macworth's 
suit. He became desperate, and presented him- 
self before her with a loaded pistol, swearing he 
would shoot himself in her presence if she gave 



LADY MACWORTH. 77 

him no hope ; she was so alarmed that she hardly 
knew what she said, but she prevented him from 
committing suicide that day. After many more 
scenes of violence, she was worried into compli- 
ance, and became the wife of a very dissipated 
and half-crazy man. He drove tandem in an 
open carriage, every pannel and each wheel 
painted a different color, and on the back were 
the words, This is the Tippee. 

Installed as Lady Macworth and mistress of 
the Knoll, which was the name of his country- 
seat, her only company were Sir Herbert's riotous 
companions, who, according to the custom of that 
day, spent the evening in drhiking and carousing, 
and, when the guests were carried home by their 
servants, the host was generally prostrate on the 
floor, to be picked up and put to bed by his valet 
and footmen. The young wife was shocked by 
these excesses, but could not make Sir Herbert 
ashamed of them ; for a night's sleep obliterated 
from his mind the scene of the previous evening. 
It occurred to her that he had better be made 
acquainted with the state in which he and the 
room were, when the carouse broke up ; so the 
next time that her husband was dead-drunk on 
the floor, she forbade the servants to remove him 
or anything about him. Broken glass and spilled 
wine and chairs upset were all left as they were, 
and she locked up the dining-room door, resolved 



78 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

that Sir Herbert should remain there till morn- 
ing. Finding the men-servants were inclined to 
disobey her, she mounted guard over the room 
with a pistol in her hand, and declared she would 
shoot the man who dared approach that door. 
On this the servants went off to bed, and she kept 
her melancholy watch alone. 

As soon as it was broad daylight she entered 
the room, opened the shutters, and aroused her 
husband. His astonishment and bewilderment 
were great, and when he came to his senses he 
was shocked at the scene around him, and began 
to blame his servants. She told him the part she 
had acted and her motive for so doing : and he 
was so pleased with her courage and spirit, that 
he called her a fine girl and promised never to 
repeat such an orgy. 

She made him give up some of his worst com- 
panions, and invited to her house the best of her 
friends ; but she could not reform such a poor, 
weak, half-crazy man, and he did not live long 
to torment her. She became a widow at nine- 
teen, and sent for a dear friend, a few years older 
than herself, to come and live with her. Miss 
P was a woman of good sense and high prin- 
ciples. She had renounced her young friend 
when she made a match so unworthy of her ; but 
now that that terrible alliance was dissolved, she 
hoped to be of some service to her, and became a 



LADY MACWORTH. 79 

resident at the Knoll. Her influence was very 
powerful, and the lovely young widow corrected 
many of her faults, ceased to use the slang and 
coarse expressions which her husband had taught 
her, closed her doors to his bad companions, cul- 
tivated the society of the best people, and became 
the amiable and elegant woman that she was 
when I first knew her. 

During her husband's life there came to her 
house a young man of high family, large fortune, 
and great beauty. He was making the tour of 
Wales, and brought a letter of introduction to Sir 
Herbert Macworth. He was heir to large estates, 
and his mother was urging him to marry. He 
said he must first fall in love, and he had never 
yet seen the lady whom he could love. When he 
left her, to make this tour, she hoped he would 
be captivated by some fair Cambrian, and return 
to her engaged. On his coming home, she eagerly 
asked him if he had seen the lady he could love ; 
he answered very gravely that he had, but she 
was already the wife of another, and therefore he 
should never marry. He had fallen in love with 
Lady Macworth ! To divert the current of his 
thoughts he went abroad, and only returned when 
he heard of the death of Sir Herbert Macworth. 
In due time he renewed his acquaintance with 
the lovely widow, and was delighted to find her 
so improved ; attractive as she had been before, 



80 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

she was now tenfold more charming. She was 
cultivating her mind by reading the best books, 
and improving her character by listening to the 

counsel of her excellent friend, Miss P . He 

joined in their pursuits, and enlarged the boun- 
daries of their knowledge by his instructive con- 
versation. The hearts of the two young people 
were soon united, but she refused to engage her- 
self to him until she had been a widow for a year. 
This deference she paid to the opinion of the 
world. At the expiration of the year he urged 
her to marry him ; but she said she would not 
marry until she was twenty-one years old. " I 
have never yet been my own mistress ; as a minor 
I have no power over my property, and I choose 
to be of age before I again give myself a master." 

In vain did her lover combat this fancy, and 
assure her she should do as she pleased with her 
property after marriage. She put him off for 
another year, and enjoyed meanwhile as much as 
she could of his society. A life-long grief was 
the consequence of this delay, for her lover died 
toward the close of that year; and she always 
believed that, had she married him, he would not 
have been exposed to the infectious disease which 
killed him. 

Now, for the first time, did she experience the 
true heart-sorrow of a widow. She renounced 
society, shut herself up with her friend, and suf- 



LADY MACWORTH. 81 

fered severely from this bereavement. The near 
relations of Mr. Hanbury had paid her great 
attention as his affianced bride, and she was 
much beloved by his mother and brother. For 
many months they were the only friends admitted 
to her privacy. Their sympathy consoled and 
cheered her. This younger brother succeeded to 
the estates of the one that was gone ; he resem- 
bled him in his person and character ; their voices 
were alike, and their pursuits the same. Can we 
think it very strange if this living likeness should, 
in time, take the place of the original, if words 
of love should mingle with words of sympathy, 
and the same tones that once vibrated through 
her heart should again find an answering chord 
there ? 

. In marrying the younger Mr. Hanbury, she 
took possession of the same delightful home that 
she would have shared with his elder brother, the 
same woods and groves and brooks that were 
sacred to his memory, and her love for his name 
induced her to relinquish her title of Lady Mac- 
worth and become plain Mrs. Hanbury. One of 
her first occupations after her marriage was to 
build a pretty hermitage on a high point of land 
in her park, which commanded a view of the 
church where the remains of her first love were 

laid. She, with the aid of Miss P , covered 

the inside walls with shells and spars and other 

4* F 



82 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

brilliant stones. The floor was of very small 
pebbles, bine and white, laid in a regular pattern 
and producing a very pretty effect. 

When I was shown the curious and elaborate 
work bestowed on this little building by the deli- 
cate hands of Mrs. Hanbury, I called it a labor 
of patience. " Say rather a labor of love ; it did 
me more good to work here than anything else 
could do, and I was only sorry when it was fin- 
ished." She loved her husband, but it was with 
a chastened, sober love, which showed how much 
she had suffered. 



PRINCESS CARABOO. 83 



CHAPTER X. 

PRINCESS CARABOO. 

I WAS on a visit near Bristol when the fol- 
lowing events took place, and I shared in the 
excitement they produced. 

Mrs. Worrell, a lady of fortune, residing at her 
country-seat, just out of Bristol, in England, saw, 
coming up her avenue, a fine-looking young 
woman, strangely dressed, and beckoned to her 
to come to the drawing-room window, instead 
of going round to the back-door. The stranger 
bowed gracefully, but did not speak. Mrs. Wor- 
rell made some kind inquiries, but was answered 
in some language unknown to her. She soon 
found, however, that the poor girl was hungry, 
and sent her round to her kitchen to be refreshed 
with good food. While eating it, a sailor came 
begging to the door, saying he had been ship- 
wrecked, and lost everything, on his return voy- 
age from India. It occurred to Mrs. Worrell 
that he might understand the language of the 
poor girl, and, on bringing them together, he 
said she spoke the Malay language, and he un- 
derstood it a little, and interpreted her story 



84 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

thus : " She was a native of one of the Malay 
Islands, but somehow or other had become a 
servant in an English family in Calcutta, and 
accompanied them on their return to England. 
The captain of the vessel fell in love with her, 
and when they got into port, she was so afraid 
of his carrying her off, that she stripped off her 
clothes and swam ashore. At the first house she 
went to, the people clothed her as you see. The 
Malay women swim and dive as well as the men." 
This history, with the interesting appearance 
of the girl, so touched the benevolent heart of 
Mrs. Worrell, that she resolved to give her a 
home for the present, and sent off the sailor well 
paid for serving as her interpreter. The sons of 
Mrs. Worrell were not so easily satisfied as to 
the story of this new inmate, and even suggested 
that she might be an impostor, or the agent of a 
gang of thieves, all which suppositions their 
mother indignantly rejected. There was in the 
house a volume of costumes of the Malays, and 
on showing them to the stranger, her face bright- 
ened up, and she made signs that these were her 
people ; and when she came to the costume of a 
Malay princess, she was much excited, and indi- 
cated that it was herself. The dress was formed 
of a quantity of fine white muslin, with a rich 
sash of various colors round the waist, drapery 
hanging from the shoulders nearly to the feet, a 



PRINCESS CABABOO. 85 

curious head-dress of red muslin, with a bunch 
of peacock's feathers sticking up on one side. A 
pair of sandals completed the costume. Mrs. 
Worrell furnished all the materials for her strange 
guest to dress herself in this manner, and in a 
few days she was introduced to Mrs. Worrell's 
friends as the Princess Caraboo, and was allowed 
to associate with the family as an equal. Her 
dark complexion and shining black hair, large 
lustrous eyes and black eyebrows, gave her a 
very Oriental appearance, and her costume was 
very becoming. It was soon known that there 
was a Malay princess staying at Mrs. Worrell's, 
and her door was besieged with visitors, curious 
to see this novelty, and all went away satisfied 
that she was really the Princess Caraboo. She 
bore being stared at, and talked about, with such 
dignity and propriety as astonished all who saw 
her. Mrs. Worrell observed that her not under- 
standing English helped her to bear it. Many 
were so charmed with her as to think her a great 
beauty, and all extolled her grace and delicacy. 

In her morning walks with her hostess, she 
would surprise her by running up a tree like a 
cat, or diving into a pond, or turning a somerset 
on the road, — strange pranks for a drawing- 
room guest, but supposed to be in character for 
a Malay princess. Caraboo was requested to 
write her language, which she did, and the man- 



86 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS.- 

uscript was sent to Oxford, to ascertain what 
language it was, and found to be unknown. All 
those circumstances were told in the papers, and 
people came in crowds to see this wonderful for- 
eigner, and poor Mrs. Worrell was getting tired 
of her lion, when, on going to breakfast one morn- 
ing, Caraboo was not to be found. The poor girl 
had perceived that her kind hostess was worried, 
and determined to relieve her of her presence ; 
so she stripped herself of all the fine clothes and 
trinkets that had been given to her, and, putting 
on the old clothes in which she first entered the 
house, she ran away at early dawn, and for sev- 
eral days eluded the pursuit of her kind friend, 
who could not bear the idea of her becoming 
again a destitute beggar. 

She was at last found, and brought back to 
her luxurious home, and made more of than 
ever, her conduct having proved her honesty 
and delicacy. Various were the opinions enter- 
tained of this wonderful stranger ; sarcastic par- 
agraphs in the newspapers ridiculed all her ad- 
mirers as the dupes of an impostor; spirited 
defences of her were written, and it was observed 
that it was only those who had never seen her 
that doubted the reality of her character. All 
who came within reach of her personal attrac- 
tions were firm believers in the Princess Caraboo. 

Worn out by living in this state of continual 



PRINCESS CARAB00. 87 

exhibition, her health failed, and she was confined 
to her bed in a high fever. Several physicians 
attended her, and came believing her an impostor, 
and that she understood English as well as they 
did ; so they determined to put her to the proof, 
by narrowly watching her countenance when 
they spoke to each other of her dangerous ill- 
ness, and that nothing could save her life. They 
said all this, and much more, without producing 
the least change in her countenance, and then 
they became believers hi the Malay Princess. 
The fever did not give way to their treatment, 
and fears were really entertained for her life. 
But she took the case into her own hands, and 
eluding the vigilance of her nurse, she ran up 
into the garret and plunged into a large tank of 
cold water. After the whole family had searched 
for her, there she was found, cured of her fever, 
for from that time she recovered. 

So many persons were disappointed of seeing 
her, during her illness, that fewer now came to 
the house ; but still the controversy concerning 
her continued in the newspapers ; and one middle- 
aged man of the world, who prided himself on his 
knowledge of the female mind, said he knew he 
could detect her as an impostor, if he could be 
alone with her for half an hour. 

The challenge was accepted by Mrs. Worrell. 
He came to Bristol, he had his tete-a-tete with 



88 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Caraboo, he tried all his arts, and failed to prove 
her to be anything but a Malay girl who did not 
understand English. He said he had flattered 
her and made love to her ; he had acted the fath- 
erly friend, and assured her that he knew her 
true history, and that she understood every word 
he said ; and all this did not change the expres- 
sion of her face from that of stupid wonderment 
at his behavior. He ended by saying, " I am 
sure she thinks me either a mountebank or a 
fool, I don't know which." 

Caraboo had many invitations to visit the 
neighboring gentry, but she declined them all, 
and only accepted one from a celebrated physician 
in Bath, who shared Mrs* Worrell's faith in her 
as a Princess, and wished to show her to his 
friends. The poor girl was so worn out when she 
arrived at his house that she retired early ; and 
a party of young ladies who called to see her 
were so disappointed to hear that she was in bed, 
that they begged leave to see her asleep. Having 
waited till she was supposed to sleep soundly, 
they ventured into her room. One hand hung 
carelessly over the edge of the bed, and her visit- 
ors were so interested in her, that each one 
kneeled down and kissed it. Her visit to Bath 
was short, for she was weary of being exhibited. 

Soon after her return to Bristol, she was sitting 
with Mrs. Worrell by the drawing-room window, 



PRINCESS CARABOO. 89 

which commanded a view of the avenue, and saw 
a woman coming up who filled her with alarm. 
She screamed, threw herself on her knees before 
Mrs. Worrell, and exclaimed, in good English, 
" 0, Mrs. Worrell, hear me first." To hear her 
speak so upset Mrs. Worrell ; she nearly fainted, 
and could hear no more. The structure which 
she had been weeks in rearing was suddenly de- 
molished, and she felt as if the solid earth were 
giving way under her. 

Caraboo's real story was this. She was born a 
Gypsy, and after leading their vagrant life till she 
was seventeen, she struck out a new path for her- 
self, and became a house-servant. She was clever, 
active, and faithful, and went out with a family 
to the East Indies, and, after various vicissitudes, 
found herself reduced to beggary in the streets of 
Bristol. This was just after the fall of Napoleon, 
and the peace between France and England, which 
brought over many French beggars, and she 
observed that they received more alms than she 
did. So she tried to make herself look foreign, 
and pretended not to speak English. On first 
trying this she wandered as far as Mrs. Worrell's, 
and we have seen what happened there. It re- 
mains to be explained that the sailor knew noth- 
ing of the Malay language ; but having said lie 
did, and supposing that her gibberish was that 
language, he felt obliged to pretend to interpret 



90 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

it, and she, hearing the story that he made up for 
her, adopted it, never imagining all that it en- 
tailed upon her. When she ran away it was 
because she was tired of acting a part, but was 
forced back into it. When she heard the physi- 
cians say she would die, it did not disturb her, 
for she was tired of life. When the man of 
fashion had his interview with her, she was fully 
prepared for him by having heard it talked of 
before her, but she certainly had a wonderful 
command of countenance. She said nothing had 
ever tried her so much as those ladies in Bath 
kissing her hand ; she came very near bursting 
out laughing. 

All whom she had deceived were grievously 
mortified, and some were enraged ; but Mrs. 
Worrell, who had a right to feel worse than any- 
body, behaved in the kindest manner to her poor 
protegee. She was conscious of having done much 
to force upon her the part she had acted, and she 
kindly shielded her from all unpleasant con- 
sequences. The Malay costume was changed for 
a decent English dress, and a plan was laid to 
send her out to a Moravian settlement in the 
United States. The manager of the Bristol theatre 
wished to engage her as an actress, and intended 
to have her story made into a farce, and that she 
should act Caraboo on his stage. To this Mrs. 
Worrell would not listen for a moment, and the 



PEINCESS CARABOO. 91 

gratitude of the Gypsy girl making her conform to 
the wishes of her kind friend, she went to Amer- 
ica. I have still to explain why the sight of that 
woman in the avenue so affected Caraboo. She 
recognized her as the person in whose house she 
had passed a night, and to whom she owed the 
price of her lodging. A particular description of 
the beggar-girl, as she first appeared to Mrs. 
Worrell, had been put in the newspaper, and the 
lodging-house keeper recognized in it her run- 
away lodger, and traced her to her luxurious 
home. 

Since writing the above, I have seen the follow- 
ing paragraph : — 

" English papers mention the death at Bristol 
of an importer of leeches, who, when a young and 
prepossessing girl, had for a short time created a 
great sensation in the literary and fashionable 
circles of Bath and other places, under the false 
title and rank of ' the Princess Caraboo.' " 



92 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE ENGLISH STAGE. — MRS. JORDAN. 

WHEN I was young, I used to hear a very 
old gentleman boast of having seen Gar- 
rick perform, and express some contempt for all 
other actors. Now that I am old, I congratulate 
myself on having seen all three of the Kembles, 
Mrs. Siddons and her two brothers, act all their 
best parts, previous to Mrs. Siddons retiring from 
the stage. I also saw the debut of Miss O'Neil 
on the London boards, and witnessed the triumph 
of her natural acting over the artificial, conven- 
tional manner of the Kemble school. At first, a 
London audience did not know what to make of 
an actress whose style was entirely different from 
that of Mrs. Siddons ; but when her pathos drew 
tears from all eyes, and her emotion stirred every 
heart, old prejudices gave way, and the applause 
was rapturous. I saw her in the play of " The 
Stranger," three nights in succession, and could 
see the growing enthusiasm of the audience for 
her new style of acting. Her career on the stage 
was short, for she married well and retired to 
private life. 



THE ENGLISH STAGE. 93 

Her marriage happened in this way. There 
was at Kilkenny, in Ireland, a company of ama- 
teur actors, who performed for a week every year, 
for the benefit of the poor ; and as it was deemed 
highly improper, in those days, for ladies to take 
parts with them, they hired professional actresses. 
Miss O'Neil was invited to act there ; she con- 
sented, and gave her services to her countrymen. 
Two brothers of a noble family were among the 
best performers, and they acted the principal male 
characters to Miss O'Neil' s female ones. These 
plays were very fashionable, and people came from 
far and near to attend them. When they were 
over, one of those brothers sought an interview 
with the other, and said he was about to tell him 
something which he knew he would object to very 
strongly, — that he meant to marry Miss O'Neil ; 
she had accepted his offer, and nothing should 
prevent his making her his wife. The brother 
replied, " I have but one objection to your doing 
so, and that is, that I meant to marry her myself." 
The friends of these young men were at first 
opposed to the match; but the excellent qualities 
of Miss O'Neil, and her judicious conduct, over- 
came their dislike, and she became an honored 
and loved member of the family. 

Yery different was the career of the unhappy 
Mrs. Jordan. Comedy was her forte, and she was 
as natural in it as Miss O'Neil was in tragedy. 



94 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

She drew crowded houses, and fascinated the 
public by her gayety and humor, her sprightliness 
and grace, her pretty face and delicate form. 
The Duke of Clarence, one of the handsome sons 
of George III., fell in love with her, when she 
was at the height of her fame and in the bloom 
of youth. After a long series of flattering atten- 
tions, he succeeded in carrying her off to his fine 
country-house in the environs of London, and 
made her the mistress of himself and his estab- 
lishment. For several years she continued her 
professional career, and paid her lover's debts 
with the emolument. Her influence made him a 
domestic character, and a large family of chil- 
dren attached him to his home, and made the 
union seem like that of a married pair. After 
having several children she left the stage and 
devoted herself to the government of her family 
and the education of her daughters, who were 
most carefully brought up. One of her regula- 
tions was that they should never look into a 
newspaper. 

I happened to be visiting at a country-seat, 
near that of the Duke of Clarence, and where the 
young ladies of the family were taking French 
lessons from the same master who was teaching 
the Misses Fitz-Clarence, and we used to ask 
questions about them, and sometimes we read the 
French letters they wrote to him as exercises, and 



MKS. JORDAN. 95 

which he brought away to correct. I remember 
one passage in those letters, wherein the writer 
begs to be excused for a very short letter, because 
she is writing in her father's sick-room, and she 
is afraid the scratching of her pen will disturb 
him. These juvenile productions gave us an in- 
sight into the domestic life of the retired actress ; 
we -could but admire her well-regulated house- 
hold, and we saw what a good mother she was to 
her numerous children, who all grew up to be 
fine men and women. The boys were put into the 
army and navy, and the girls made grand matches, 
which, however, they could never have done if 
their mother had not been so basely used by their 
father that she felt obliged to quit his roof. 

Mrs. Jordan had lived so long with the Duke, 
and had been so faithful to him, that she felt as 
if she were legally wedded to him. What, then, 
must have been her dismay and indignation, when 
she saw in the newspapers an account of his being 
a candidate for the hand of the wealthiest heiress 
in England, Miss Tilnay Long Wellesley Pole ! 
She would not have believed it, if the whole cor- 
respondence had not been given. There was the 
offer of the man whom she considered her hus- 
band, and the lady's refusal. 

Many women, in her position, would have 
swallowed the insult, and kept her place at the 
head of such an establishment; but on finding 



96 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

that the tie which she had considered sacred was 
contemned by the Duke, she left his roof and 
went forth penniless, to earn her living by her 
former profession. It was this spirited action of 
Mrs. Jordan, and the shameful conduct of the 
Duke, which gave her such popularity on her re- 
appearance at Covent Garden Theatre. Every 
expression in the plays she acted, which could 
be made to apply to her situation, brought down 
the house and showed John Bull's strong sense 
of injustice. But this could not last long. She 
was no longer young ; she was enormously fat, 
and this spoiled her for a comic actress, so she was 
obliged to leave the stage, and all I know of her, 
after this, is, that she died in France, so poor as 
to have a pauper's funeral. 

How her children could suffer this, if they 
knew of her poverty, I cannot imagine ; perhaps 
her disinterested love for them made her keep 
them ignorant of her whereabouts and her neces- 
sities. She may have acted the part of the fabled 
pelican, and sacrificed herself for the good of her 
young. If so, she had some reward, even in this 
life, for her leaving them entirely changed their 
position in the world. They were immediately 
noticed by the royal family, received at court, 
and sought in marriage by the highest nobility. 



BATH. 97 



CHAPTER XII. 

BATH. — BEAU NASH. — THE B FAMILY. 

THOUGH separated by a week's journey from 
our London friends, we had frequent oppor- 
tunities of meeting. They would come to see us 
in Wales, and we would visit them in the metrop- 
olis. Sometimes we spent a few weeks in the city 
of Bath, which was rather more than half-way to 
London, and there we were sure to meet some of 
our dearest friends, who made a point of drinking 
the chalybeate waters there every winter. Bath 
was then unlike every other city ; it was built for 
the benefit of invalids, who came there on ac- 
count of the hot mineral springs, and the munici- 
pal arrangements were made with regard to them. 
Many of the streets were paved all over with 
large flag-stones, over which no carriages were 
allowed to pass. There were several hundred 
sedan chairs, carried by tall porters, dressed in 
uniform, which were numbered and registered at 
an office, and obliged to be kept exquisitely clean ; 
numerous rules were made to regulate the be- 
havior and the fares of the chairmen. Wheel- 
chairs, too, were on the same footing. Very large 

5 G 



98 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

public baths were maintained by the city for the 
use of the sick. In the centre, the boiling hot 
springs bubbled up, and all around the sides were 
the dressing-rooms for the bathers, who frequently 
spent hours in the bath, which was shallow enough 
on one side to admit of stone benches, on which 
to sit with the water up to the neck. I have seen 
a man so crippled by rheumatism as to be carried 
into the bath, and after he had been in a few 
minutes, he could walk about. All the bathers 
wore dresses, and men and women went in to- 
gether. 

One great amusement of Bath was the Pump- 
room, an immense hall with an arched roof. 
There was a gallery at one end for the band to 
play in, and at the side, opposite the main en- 
trance, was a marble counter, enclosing the fau- 
cets that supplied the company with the mineral 
waters, and a woman who filled and refilled the 
glasses. Between each draught, the invalid was 
ordered to walk half an hour, and those under 
this treatment took the waters before breakfast 
and before dinner, and walked up and down 
the room between each glass. Before breakfast 
they were without music and without lookers-on ; 
but from two till four o'clock the band played 
and the room was full, being frequented by many 
besides the invalids. It was a very gay scene ; 
all the fashion and beauty of the season met 



BEAU NASH. 99 

there, to walk and talk, to discuss the news of 
the day and make arrangements for the evening 
amusements. Two sets of very handsome assem- 
bly rooms were provided by the city, and sub- 
scription balls were held in them every week. 
Here, too, the authorities interfered for the good 
of the invalid: no dancing was allowed after 
eleven o'clock, and this made people willing to 
begin at eight. Besides all these peculiar ar- 
rangements, there was one still more uncommon, 
and that was the appointment of a Master of 
Ceremonies, who continued from year to year to 
preside over these balls, and did all in his power 
to promote the pleasure of the visitors. On 
arriving in Bath, the head of the family was ex- 
pected to call on the Master of Ceremonies, and 
leave his card and a guinea fee. Then this call 
was returned, and all the members of the family 
were introduced. One man distinguished himself 
in this walk of life, and made his very equivocal 
calling to be respected. Beau Nash, as he was 
called, was a handsome man, with elegant man- 
ners, and sufficient confidence in himself not to 
be put down by the insolence of fashion. He 
was often ill-treated, and sometimes insulted ; 
but he never appeared to be disturbed by it. He 
presided over the balls, and was bound to find 
partners for all the young ladies whose fathers 
had called on him. This was no easy task, when 



100 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the exquisites of the day voted dancing to be a 
bore. He was one evening trying to persuade 
a knot of young men to take partners, and prais- 
ing the young girls who wanted to dance, when 
one of them said, " Very well, Nash ; trot 'em by, 
and let us see them." 

One ball, near the beginning of the season, was 
made more elegant than any other ; certain things 
were required, even in the dress of the ladies ; 
and the ball opened with the stately and graceful 
dance called the Minuet de la Cour, performed by 
the Master of Ceremonies with any young lady 
who was coming out into the world for the first 
time. If there were several debutantes, he danced 
with each, and that was called coming out. 

It had been fashionable to wear lace aprons in 
full dress, and all sorts of muslin aprons at other 
times ; but they were no longer the mode, and 
they were forbidden at this ball. A very fashion- 
able Duchess was about to enter the room with a 
beautiful point-lace apron on. The doorkeeper 
told her she could not go in with that apron. 
She insisted she would, but the man would not 
permit it ; so she sent for Mr. Nash, saying she 
knew he would not object to such an apron as 
that. He came, and he did object so strongly 
that the Duchess was obliged to submit ; so she 
took off the offending lace, and very good- 
naturedly threw it at Mr. Nash, saying, " There ! 



THE B FAMILY. 101 

take that for your pains." It was a gift of great 
value, and he returned it the next morning ; but 
she sent it back, saying she meant him to keep it. 
On a lady's behaving very rudely to him, he 
said, " Madam, what do you take me for ? " "I 
take you for the very last link m the scale of 
gentility." Such cuts as these were hard to bear, 
but he took them very philosophically. The city 
authorities were so grateful for his services, that 
they put up a full-length picture of him in the 
Pump-room. It happened to be placed between 
two busts, one of Sir Isaac Newton, the other of 
some distinguished man, I forget who ; but a wit 
wrote these lines on seeing them : 

" This picture, placed those busts between, 
Gives satire all its strength ; 
Wisdom and worth are little seen, 
But folly at full length. ,, 

One family, in the habit of going every year 
to Bath, failed to meet us there ; and as their de- 
tention at home was occasioned by some curious 
circumstances, I will relate them here. Mr. 

B was a wealthy merchant of London, and 

the happy father of eleven children, when he lost 
his lovely and exemplary wife. A dear friend of 
hers had become the governess of her children, 
and on her death-bed she enjoined it on her hus- 
band never to part from Miss H . His eldest 

daughter, though only eleven years old, took the 



102 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

head of his table, and, with the help of their good 
old housekeeper, she acted as mistress of the 
house. When she grew up, her father removed 
his family to a magnificent country seat in one of 
the most beautiful counties of England, and she 
enjoyed organizing the establishment on a large 
scale. With plenty of good servants, her house- 
keeping was nothing but a pleasure to her ; and 
she was so happy as the mistress of her father's 
house, that she refused numerous proposals of 
marriage, and remained single to a mature age. 
Her sisters grew up and married, and the gov- 
erness was no longer needed in the family ; but 

Mr. B remembered his wife's injunction, and 

would not part from her. It was evident that 
she had become essential to the happiness of their 
father. When ill, no one was allowed to nurse 

him but Miss H ; when well, she was his 

companion ; and after tea, which she always 
poured out, she spent the evening with him in 
his library, and the young folks saw no more of 
them that night. 

On the occasion of one of the younger daugh- 
ters being married, a very large family party was 

assembled under Mr. B 's roof. They had 

been several days collecting, and he had been 
more than usual among them, owing to his com- 
panion, Miss H- , being absent on a visit to a 

widowed brother with a large family of children. 



THE B FAMILY. 103 

The very night before the wedding, Mr. B 



received a letter from that brother, saying that 
he had great need of the presence of his sister, 
and, as she could no longer be necessary to Mr. 

B 's children, he wished her to remain with 

him. This she refused to do in such a manner 
as led him to suspect that she was secretly mar- 
ried, and, if that were the case, he would never 
let her leave his roof but as the acknowledged 
wife of Mr. B . Thunderstruck by the con- 
tents of this letter, he sent for his eldest daughter, 
and laid it before her. She read it, and said, 

" Of course Miss H is more needed there 

than here, and you will consent to her living 
with her brother." " I cannot," faltered out the 
father, " for I have been married to her twelve 
years." 

Miss B sank upon a sofa, and nearly fainted. 

That proud man, who had always governed his 
family with an iron rule, now humbled himself to 
his child, and begged her to forgive him for what 
he had done. He assured her that it was his 
consideration for her that made him conceal his 
marriage. He expected her to accept one of her 
many offers, and when she left his house for her 
own, he meant to place his wife at the head of 
his establishment. 

When Miss B had sufficiently recovered 

from the shock of this discovery, she assured her 
father that none of his children would have ob- 



104 EECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

jected to his marrying whom he pleased, but they 
could never cease to regret his having led such a 
life of deception and concealment. He acknowl- 
edged his error, and expressed great contrition, 
and asked her what he must now do. She re- 
quested him to keep his secret till after the wed- 
ding, the next morning ; and when the bride and 
groom were off on their wedding tour, he could 
tell it to all his other children, and then set off 
in his own carriage, and bring his wife home. 
" She will not take your place, my dear child ; 
you must still be the mistress of the house." 
" No, father, that cannot be ; she must take the 
place that belongs to her as your wife. Now, let 
me go back to my company, and let them perceive 
nothing of what has happened." She returned 
to the drawing-rooA, but such a change had come 
over her fine face, that her brothers came to her, 
one after the other, to ask what was the matter. 
She said she would tell them the next day, and 
begged them not to ask any questions now. 

All the arrangements of the wedding rested on 
her shoulders, and she went through with it well, 
notwithstanding the painful secret that lay so 
heavy at her heart, and the married pair went off 
quite unconscious that anything remarkable had 
occurred at home. 

All the brothers and sisters were requested to 
remain a few hours after the wedding was over ; 
and when reassembled in the drawing-room, that 



THE B FAMILY. 105 

unhappy father entered, as a culprit before his 
children, and disclosed to them his marriage, call- 
ing upon his eldest son as a witness of the cere- 
mony. This was an added surprise, but left no 
doubt on their minds as to the validity of the 
marriage. That son now came forward to recon- 
cile the children to their father, and make him 
feel more comfortable before them. He encour- 
aged him to start at once for D , and to 

bring his wife home, whilst they were all there to 
receive her, and install her as mistress of the 

house. Mr. B 's daughters had often been 

made uneasy by observing the great intimacy of 

their father and Miss H , and the servants 

thought so ill of it as to treat her with disrespect. 
Miss B had often consulted her eldest broth- 
er about it, and asked him to persuade his father 

to let Miss H depart; but he made light 

of his sister's alarms, and thought Miss H 

had better stay ; the old gentleman needed her 
care when ill, and her company when well. The 
seeming indifference of this brother to what pained 

her so much, always puzzled Miss B ; but 

now all was explained, and though she felt like a 
sovereign queen about to abdicate, she was re- 
lieved of many old annoyances. She wished her 
brother to tell the servants what had happened, 
but he thought she would do it best, as it was 
she who was about to give up the reins of gov- 

5* 



106 EECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

ernment. So she assembled them, fifteen in 
number, in the housekeeper's room, and, having 
told the facts of the case, she exhorted them to 
treat with respect and obedience the lawful wife 
of their master. 

The next evening their father would return with 

his wife. Just before he arrived, Miss B 

took a turn on a terrace-walk behind the house, 
to cool her head and draw a long breath ; but she 
was driven back into the house by the sound of 
the church bells in the village, ringing out a mer- 
ry peal, in honor of the married pair, as they 
drove through it. The carriage drove up to the 

door, and the eldest son handed out Mrs. B , 

saluted her kindly, and conducted her into the 
room where all the relations awaited her. She was 
overcome to tears, but gratefully received their 
welcome, and the kisses usually bestowed on her 
after an absence. 

Miss B went abroad for six months, and 

in that time Mrs. B became thoroughly initi- 
ated into her new position, and did the honors of 
her house admirably. The neighboring gentry 
called upon her, and the married sons and daugh- 
ters, with their children, visited there as much as 
ever, and were as well received. 

Miss B told me, that on her return to the 

paternal mansion, she felt as if she had been 
dead and was alive again, and found her place 
entirely filled up. 



IRELAND. 10T 



CHAPTER XIII. 

IRELAND. — SIR HARRY BROWN HAYES. — BRENAN. 

WHEN I was a girl in my teens, my par- 
ents took me with tliem for a tour in , 
Ireland. The beautiful scenery, the wit and hu- 
mor of the lower classes, and the hospitality and 
kindness which we received, made our tour a suc- 
cession of delightful visits, whilst the peculiar 
customs of the people, and thrilling narratives 
of those who had suffered in the late rebellion, 
amused and interested us much. No good hotel, 
nor decent road-side inn, was to be found any- 
where, except hi Dublin. The nobility and gentry 
expected to entertain all respectable travellers, 
and were glad to do so, for the sake of their com- 
pany. We therefore went from one country-seat » 
to another, escorted by part of each family we 
left to that we were going to, and by the time 
that we reached the Lakes of Killarney, our party 
of three was augmented to thirteen. There we 
experienced the miseries of a bad inn ; and there 
we learned that it was considered necessary to 
look after the safety of a young lady, as abduc- 
tion was the fashion of the day. My room must 



108 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

be inside that of my parents, with no door but that 
between the two rooms, and the window must be 
securely fastened. We were told that there was 
a club of young men who were sworn to assist one 
another in carrying off any girl they fancied. 

It was hard for us to believe this, and my fath- 
er treated it as a joke upon travellers, until we 
were visiting an old friend of his, Mr. Penrose, 
and learned from him that his niece had been 
carried off, by a stratagem, from the very house 
we were then in. He gave us the following ac- 
count of it. Miss Penrose was on a visit to her 
uncle, whose residence was several miles from 
that of her mother. One evening, about dusk, 
a carriage drove up to the door, and a note 
was sent in to Miss Penrose, informing her that 
her mother was suddenly taken ill, and had 
sent a carriage to bring her home. She did 
not know the equipage or the coachman, but 
supposed they were hired for the occasion, and 
went off in it, nothing doubting. Absorbed by 
the news of her mother's illness, and prevented 
by the shades of night from observing the road, 
sbe had proceeded several miles before she re- 
marked that it was very rough, and that she saw 
no familiar objects. She called to the coachman, 
said that he had mistaken the road, and must 
turn back and find the right one. He pulled up, 
and the carriage was at once surrounded by men 



SIR HARRY BROWN HAYES. 109 

on horseback, one of whom dismounted, entered 
the carriage, seated himself beside her, and or- 
dered the coachman to drive on. 

Astonished beyond all power of expression, she 
drew back amazed, unable in the twilight to 
read the face of the intruder. He endeavored to 
convince her that she was safe under his protec- 
tion, that he was very much in love with her, and 
intended honorable marriage. He introduced 
himself as Sir Henry Brown Hayes, and said he 
was carrying her to his country-seat, where a 
clergyman would be in readiness to marry them 
at once. He ran on in this strain very volubly 
till they reached his castle, but she hardly heard 
what he said ; she thought only how she could 
escape from his power. She attempted to let 
down the glass and scream, but he would not let 
her do that, and he assured her it would be in 
vain, for they were far from any human habita- 
tion but his own, where they would soon arrive. 

She was received with obsequious civility by 
the housekeeper, whom she saw at once to be the 
willing instrument of her master's iniquity. Sir 
Henry led her into a dining-room, where a sup- 
per was prepared, and soon half a dozen young 
men, one of whom had a clerical appearance, fol- 
lowed her into the room. She scanned their 
faces, but found no hope for her in any of them. 
Sir Henry acted the gay gallant. He would have 



110 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the marriage first, and then the wedding feast. 
Miss Penrose found strength enough to protest 
against his doings, to declare she would never 
marry him, and to appeal to the honor of the 
men around her. It was all in vain ; her dis- 
tress was met only by coarse jokes, and assur- 
ances that they were sworn to assist Sir Harry in 
carrying her off, and marrying her. They made 
her stand up before the clergyman or priest, I 
forget which it was. He asked for the ring, and 
said he could not marry without it. Sir Harry 
had not provided one, but he took that of his 
housekeeper, and the wedding service was begun. 
Miss Penrose caught at the idea that there could 
be no marriage without a ring, and when Sir 
Henry was. about to put it on her finger, she 
seized and broke it in two, throwing the fragments 
away with an air of triumph which provoked Sir 
Harry, but was laughed at by his companions. 
He despatched a messenger on horseback, in 
search of another ring, and then all sat down to 
supper. Even their unhappy captive ate all she 
could, by way of keeping up her strength and 
courage ; but she would drink nothing but water, 
for fear of being drugged. When allowed to retire 
for the night, she was locked into her room ; but 
she piled up before the door all the furniture she 
could move. What her feelings and reflections 
were that night, we never learned ; but the next 



SIR HARRY BROWN" HAYES. Ill 

morning, before the messenger arrived with the 
ring, her friends came to her rescue, and with 
sufficient force to capture and carry off to jail 
Sir Henry and two of his accomplices. 

Miss Penrose was an heiress, and her abduction 
made a great sensation throughout the country. 
Her courage and presence of mind were highly 
praised, and she was the heroine of the day ; but 
she was of a modest and retiring disposition, and 
shrank from all notoriety. She dreaded appear- 
ing in court, as she knew she must, when the 
trial of Sir Henry Brown Hayes came on. 

He had powerful friends, and the trial was de- 
layed in order to give time for his beard to grow, 
as he hoped, by disguising himself, to prevent his 
being identified by Miss Penrose. He not only 
changed his own appearance so entirely that his 
best friend did not know him, but he made one 
of his accomplices, who resembled him in size and 
complexion, wear the same clothes that he did 
when he ran away with the heiress, and simulate 
him as much as possible. At last the trial came 
on. The court was crammed full, and Miss Pen- 
rose was confronted with the abductor and his 
accomplice. A wand was put into her hand, and 
she was required to lay it on the head of Sir 
Henry Brown Hayes. She was startled by the 
change in his appearance ; but after looking ear- 
nestly at him, she laid the wand on the right 
head. 



112 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

He was convicted, and sentenced to be trans- 
ported to Botany Bay for seven years. Miss Pen- 
rose did not long survive this severe trial of her 
nerves. 

Mr. Penrose had a charming residence on the 
banks of the beautiful river Lee, six miles above 
its entrance into the Bay of Cork, and not far 
from the city. He had a spacious stone house, 
with ample grounds around it, extensive stables 
and carriage-house, but all in a dilapidated state ; 
yet at that very time he was building a picture 
and sculpture gallery. Such were the inconsist- 
encies often seen in Ireland. The inside of the 
house had not been repaired or painted for many 
years, the banister of the principal staircase was 
falling to pieces, and one of the family said, as we 
came down among the debris, " I am afraid you 
are thinking of Castle Rackrent" and so indeed 
we were. 

Another interesting event in our Irish tour, was 
passing over a mountain, near Cashel, which was 
infested by a famous highwayman named Brenan, 
who was represented as such a hero of romance, 
that I rather hoped we might be robbed by him. 
He was a deserter from the English army, and his 
life depended on his keeping out of reach of the 
clutches of the law. He lived, with his wife, at 
the foot of a mountain, over which passed the 
high road, and every part of which was so well 



BRENAN. 113 

known to him that he could hide himself in places 
inaccessible to his pursuers. Soldiers and civil- 
ians were always endeavoring to catch him. 

One traveller armed himself with a blunder- 
bus, and swore he would not be robbed by Bren- 
an, but if attacked by him, he would bring him, 
dead or alive, to Cashel. He was in a post-chaise 
with the windows all open, and the blunderbus 
stood in a corner before him. He was on the 
mountain road frequented by Brenan, and look- 
ing out earnestly for him on one side of the road, 
when a hand on the other side seized his blunder- 
bus, and aimed it at him. Brenan ordered him 
to throw his pistols and his purse out of the win- 
dow, or he was a dead man. The traveller obeyed, 
and then the highwayman said to him, " Now go 
to Cashel, and tell your friends that though you 
came out expressly to shoot poor Brenan, he has 
spared your life." 

Two young men, out shooting wild-fowl, met 
Brenan in the garb of a laborer, but suspected 
who he was, and told him to walk before them 
into Cashel, or they would shoot him. After a 
little remonstrance, and trying to convince them 
he was not Brenan, he did as he was bid. His 
fate now seemed certain, but his wife's cleverness 
saved him. She saw from a distance his danger, 
and putting a pair of loaded pistols into a basket, 
and covering them over with a white cloth, as if 



114 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

it were butter or cheese she was carrying to 
market, she met her husband. He said, " Hullo, 
Goody, what have you got to sell,? " seized his 
pistols, and being close to his enemies, he put 
the muzzles to their breasts, and told them to 
throw down their guns, and his wife fired them 
off. " Go," said Brenan, u and tell your friends 
that Brenan has a good wife." She saved him 
once when he was caught in bed, by clinging to 
his pursuer, whilst he ran off. He never enriched 
himself, but made friends of the poor, by bestow- 
ing on them the money he took from the wealthy. 
He was at last taken by a regiment of soldiers 
being distributed around the base of the moun- 
tain which he frequented, and marching up its 
sides, closing ranks as they went. He retreated 
to the top, and buried himself under a pile of 
furze ; suspecting he was there, but not liking to 
handle such prickly stuff, they thrust their bayo- 
nets into it, and he received numerous stabs be- 
fore he called out and surrendered. 

Some noble traits in Brenan had interested a 
member of Parliament in his favor, and he was 
negotiating with those in authority for his pardon, 
and for liberty to join the English army then 
fighting the French in Spain ; but before this 
could be arranged, the poor fellow was exe- 
cuted as a highway robber. 

My father had visited Ireland in 1797, before 



EARL CAMDEN. 115 

the rebellion broke out there, and had felt much 
pity for the unhappy peasantry of that country. 
He thought the measures of the English govern- 
ment were cruel and unjust in the extreme. 
Being a guest at one of the viceroy's grand din- 
ners, the state of Ireland was discussed in a man- 
ner very distasteful to him, and he was called 
upon, as an impartial spectator, to give his opin- 
ions, which he declined doing : but, on being 
urged to do so by Lord Camden (the viceroy), 
he said he would be happy to talk with him on 
the state of Ireland, if he would give him a pri- 
vate interview. This the Earl agreed to do, and 
a time was named for it. My father had not 
grown up in America without imbibing ideas of 
justice and liberty, which were outraged by the 
treatment which the Irish were receiving at the 
hands of the English civil and military authori- 
ties, and he spoke out his mind fully and fear- 
lessly to Lord Camden, a most narrow-minded 
old Tory. When my father said that the conduct 
of the military was enough to drive the people 
into rebellion, the Viceroy replied, that was exact- 
ly what they wished to do ; they wished to bring 
matters to a crisis, and then they could deal with 
it peremptorily. " If that is your policy," said 
my father, " you are certainly taking the right 
means to accomplish your purpose " ; and with 
these words he closed the interview. The rebel- 



116 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

lion broke out soon after, and proved a scene of 
bloodshed and cruelty on both sides fearful to 
hear of. Our visit to Ireland was ten years after 
the conclusion of that terrible civil war, and 
though it only lasted eight weeks, the country 
was but just recovering from its consequences, 
and every family had its tragic story to tell of 
peril and suffering. My father was never tired 
of hearing them, but they harrowed up my feel- 
ings so much that I rather avoided them, and 
have but few laid up in my mind. I do, however, 
remember being at a country residence, where one 
of the family, a girl of my own age, told me that 
her parents narrowly escaped assassination by the 
defeat of the rebels in a fight near their place. 
A man servant, who had faithfully served them 
many years, was observed to be much disturbed ; 
he was seen shedding tears, and going contin- 
ually to the gate, at the end of their avenue, 
to look out for news from some passer by. 
When questioned, he would not tell what troubled 
him ; but before night, news came of the defeat 
of the rebels, and then he cried for joy, and told 
his master that he knew of the impending battle, 
and that the rebel leader intended, if victorious, 
to come there and murder the family and take 
possession of the house. When asked why he 
did not warn them of their danger, he said he 
could not, without breaking his oath as a United 
Irishman. 






VINEGAR HILL. 117 

I also remember being shown a man who had 
been dead and buried three days, but came to 
life again, and told me his own story. He was a 
loyal man of Eniscorthy, and wandered heedless- 
ly into the camp of the rebels, on a height called 
Vinegar Hill, near the town. He was shot by a 
sentry for not having the countersign, his body 
was thrown into an old ruined windmill, and a 
little earth thrown over it. His wife, hearing he 
was killed, sent a request for his body by an idiot 
well known in the town. Being refused, she then 
went herself, taking the idiot with her to help 
carry her dead husband. She succeeded, after 
much importunity, in getting possession of the 
body, and carrying it home. As they took him 
up a narrow winding stairway, his wound pained 
him, and he uttered a groan, which so frightened 
them that they let him fall, and that shock re- 
vived him. His wound was dressed, and he re- 
covered to tell the story to every one who would 
listen to it. 



118 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MISS EDGEWORTH. 

MY last chapter on Ireland recalls another 
tour in that country, made with my hus 
band, twenty years later in my life. We arrived 
in Dublin, accompanied by a young friend, and 
sent off our letter of introduction to Miss Edge- 
worth, with one from me proposing to spend a 
day with her, if convenient and agreeable. To 
this we received the following very gracious re- 

ply-— 

Edgeworthtown, September 3, 1836. 

Dear Madam : — I hasten to assure you and 
Professor Farrar that we feel highly honored and 
gratified by your kind intention of paying us a 
visit. Mrs. Edge worth desires me to say, that we 
shall be at home all next week, and we shall be 
most happy to receive you, and your young friend 

Mr. W , any day after the fifth which may be 

most convenient to you. We say after the fifth, 
because on the fifth my sister (Harriet), Mrs. 
Butler, and her husband, the Rev. Mr. Butler, 
will come to us, and independently of the pleas- 
ure they will have, I am sure, in your society, I 



MISS EDGEWORTH. 119 

own I wish that yon should become acquainted 
with thera, especially as we are unlucky at this 
moment, in not having any of my brothers at 
home. My brother-in-law, Mr. Butler, is, as you 
will find, a man of literature and learning, be- 
sides being all that you will like in other respects, 
from the truth and rectitude and simplicity of 
his character. 

I am much obliged to you for the letters you 
were so good as to enclose to me. Of all our 
friends in Boston and Cambridge, we shall, I 
hope, have time to inquire further and to con- 
verse. 

There was only one thing in your letter which 
did not give us pleasure ; and we trust that after 
your arrival, and after you have had some hours 
to reflect, and a night quietly to sleep upon it, you 
will repent and recant, and give up your cruel 
purpose of giving us only one day. Mrs. Edge- 
worth will remonstrate with you, I think, more 
effectually than I can, and in the mean time I 
promise to allow you till the morning after your 
arrival to become sufficiently acquainted with 
the ways of the house and family, before I turn 
to you, as I shall (I warn you) at breakfast, for 
your ultimatum. 

T am, dear Madam, (for the present,) 

Tour much obliged and grateful 

Maeii Edgeworth. 



120 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

P. S. It must increase my interest in making 
your acquaintance, my dear Mrs. Farrar, to know 
that you are sister to Mr. Benjamin Rotch, whose 
talents I with great reason admire, and for whose 
kindness and agreeable letters I have equally 
great reason to be grateful. 

The cordiality and frankness of this letter 
made us all desirous of visiting the writer. We 
were much struck with the manner in which Mrs. 
Edgeworth was mentioned and made of import- 
ance as the lady of the house, when the whole 
place was the property of Miss Edgeworth, and she 
was at least thirty years older than her step-moth- 
er. Mr. Edgeworth had been dead several years, 
and his son had become so embarrassed in his 
affairs as to be obliged to sell his patrimonial es- 
tate ; and to prevent its passing into the hands 
of strangers, Miss Edgeworth had bought it, and 
made her step-mother mistress of the establish- 
ment, whilst she lived with her as a daughter. 
They were on the very best terms, each admiring 
and loving the other. Another member of the 
family was Mrs. Mary Sneyd, a very aged lady 
of the old school, and sister to Honoria Sneyd, 
who refused the hand of Major Andre, and be^ 
came the wife of Richard Lovel Edgeworth. The 
unhappy fate of the gallant Major is well known ; 
but few persons now living ever read the monody 



MISS EDGEWORTH. 121 

written on his death by Miss Seward, in which she 
makes her hero say, 

" Honoria lost, I woo a sterner bride ; 
The armed Bellona calls me to her side." 

It was a great pleasure to me to see the sister 
of two of Mr. Edgeworth's wives ; one belonging 
to the same period, and dressed in the same style, 
as the lovely Honoria. She did not appear till 
lunch time, when we found her seated at the ta- 
ble, in a wheel-chair, on account of her lameness. 
She reminded me of the pictures of the court 
beauties of the time of Louis XIV. Her dress 
was truly elegant, and very elaborate. Her white 
hair had the effect of powder, and the structure 
on it defies description. A very white throat 
was set off to advantage by a narrow black velvet 
ribbon, fastened by a jewel. The finest lace ruf- 
fles about her neck and elbows, with a long- 
waisted silk dress of rich texture and delicate 
color, produced an effect that was quite bewitch- 
ing. She was wonderfully well preserved for a 
lady of over eighty years of age, and it was pleas- 
ant to see the great attention paid to her by all the 
family. She was rather deaf, so I was seated by 
her side, and requested to address my conversa- 
tion to her. When lunch was over, she was 
wheeled into the library, and occupied herself 
making a cotton net to put over the wall-fruit, 



122 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

to keep it from the birds. It was worth a jour- 
ney to Edgeworthtown only to see this elegant 
specimen of old age. 

I had heard that Mr. Edgeworth's house was 
full of his inventions and contrivances, and when 
shown to our bedroom, we found such an extraor- 
dinary lock on the door, that we dared not shut 
it for fear of not being able to open it again. 
That room, too, was unlike any other I ever saw. 
It was very large, with three huge windows, two 
of them heavily curtained, and the third con- 
verted into a small wardrobe, with doors of pink 
cotton on a wooden frame. It had cwo very large 
four-posted bedsteads, with full suits of curtains, 
and an immense folding screen that divided the 
room in two, making each occupant as private as 
if in a separate room, with a dressing-table and 
ample washing conveniences on each side. A 
large grate, filled with turf, and all ready for 
lighting, with a great basket lined with tin, and 
also filled with the same fuel, reminded us strong- 
ly, we were in Ireland. Large wax candles were 
on the mantlepiece, and every convenience neces- 
sary to our comfort ; at the same time the furni- 
ture was so very old-fashioned and dilapidated, 
that no one in this country would think it possi- 
ble to use it. 

We were shown other contrivances of the for- 
mer owner, such as a door in the entrance hall, 



MISS EDGEWORTH. 123 

(through which the servants were continually 
passing,) the motion of which wound up a clock, 
the face being over the sideboard, in the dining- 
room. Several doors in the house were made 
double, in a way that I could not see the use of. 
Two doors were fastened together at the hinge 
side, making a right angle with each other, so 
that in opening one door you shut the other, and 
had to open that before you could enter, and 
when that opened, the one behind you shut. 
Miss Edgeworth said it was for safety in times 
of danger. She always mentioned her father 
with great respect, and even reverence, in her 
manner ; but nothing that I saw or heard there 
raised my opinion of him. I think his never al- 
lowing his gifted daughter any retirement, but 
insisting on her writing all her books in that 
great library, where he was teaching the children 
their lessons, and every one occupied in various 
ways, was a real act of tyranny, but she did not 
so regard it. 

In building his house, Mr. Edgeworth would 
have no drawing-room, no sitting-room but the 
one large library, with numerous windows on one 
side, some made into alcoves by projecting book- 
shelves. There were a great many books, some 
fine engravings, beautiful drawings, and very 
good oil paintings by Mrs. Edgeworth. It was a 
very pleasant family room, fully furnished with 



124 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

tables, sofas, and lounges, a curious clock, and 
various models. A little old fashioned work-ta- 
ble, with a small desk on it, was used by Miss 
Edgeworth for writing all her books. 

The fourth wife of Mr. Edgeworth was our 
hostess, and performed her part charmingly. She 
must have been very pretty, for, though short, 
fat, and forty, her appearance was very agreeable. 
Miss Edgeworth was shorter still, and carried 
herself very upright, with a dapper figure and 
quick movements. She was the remains of a 
blonde, with light eyes and hair; she was now 
gray, but wore a dark frizette, whilst the gray 
hair showed through her cap behind. She was so 
plain that she was never willing to sit for her por- 
trait, and that is the reason why the public has 
never been made acquainted with her personal 
appearance. 

In conversation we found her delightful. She 
was full of anecdotes about remarkable people, 
and often spoke from her personal knowledge of 
them. Her memory, too, was stored with valua- 
ble information, and her manner of narrating was 
so animated, that it was difficult to realize her 
age. In telling an anecdote of Mirabeau, she 
stepped out before us, and extending her arm, 
spoke a sentence of his in the impassioned man- 
ner of a French orator, and did it so admirably 
that it was quite thrilling. 



MISS EDGEWORTH. 125 

She told us two speeches of Madame de Stael 
which are worth remembering. Madame Neckar 
was a harsh mother, and always found a great 
deal of fault with her daughter ; but her hus- 
band knew his child's merits, and liked her to 
have her own way. One day a gentleman en- 
tered the room, just as Madame Neckar flourished 
out of it, after reprimanding her daughter, who 
stood abashed in the middle of the room, with 
tears on her face. He endeavored to console her 
by saying that she must not mind her mother's 
reproofs, as long as her father was satisfied with 
her, and he told her how much Mr. Neckar ad- 
mired her. To this the girl replied, " Mon pere 
pense a mon bonheur present, ma mere songe a 
mon avenir:" I talked with Miss Edgeworth of 
a work on Progressive Education by Madame 
Neckar de Saussure ; she thought it dull and te- 
dious, and said that Madame de Stael had a great 
admiration of that cousin, and said of her, " Mle a 
tous les talens qu' on me suppose, et toutes les ver- 
tices qui me manquentP 

Miss Edgeworth and all her family took the 
part of the English Government in their treat- 
ment of the Irish, and had no sympathy for the 
wrongs and sufferings of their countrymen. Big- 
oted Episcopalians, they would grant no rights to 
the Roman Catholics, and this made them very 
unpopular in their own neighborhood. 



126 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

They had been instrumental in establishing a 
free school for the sons of poor Protestant clergy- 
men, in the town which bordered on their grounds, 
and they took us to see it. It was market-day, so 
the main street was full of the lower order of 
Irish, with their horses and carts, asses and pan- 
niers, tables and stands full of eatables and articles 
of clothing. Sometimes the cart, or car, served as 
a counter on which to display their goods. The 
women in gay-colored cotton gowns, and white 
caps with full double borders, made a very gay 
appearance. As we all passed through the crowd 
to the school-house, the enmity of the Papists to 
Protestant landholders was but too evident. 

Though Mrs. Edgeworth had been the Lady 
Bountiful of the village for many years, there 
were no bows or smirks for her and her friends, 
no making way before her, no touching of hats 
or pleasant looks. A sullen expression and a 
dogged immovability were on every side of us, 
Mr. Butler, who had but just arrived in Edge- 
worthtown, was as much struck with it as we 
were, and it quite excited him. He spoke of it 
to us as a want of manners in the people, and 
called them uncivilized ; but there was more in 
it than that. He spoke to us Americans of the 
long train of oppressive measures under which 
the Irish had groaned for years ; of the Protest- 
ant clergy paid by rates levied on the Roman 



MISS EDGEWORTH. 127 

Catholics, and of the tyranny exercised by Prot- 
estant landholders.. Twenty-eight years have 
passed since I stood in that Irish crowd, and much 
has been done to improve their condition ; all the 
political disabilities then complained of by the 
Papists have been removed, oppressive laws have 
been done away with, emigration has relieved the 
land of its surplus population, and were it not 
for the designs of the Romish Church to rescue 
the island from the dominion of a Protestant 
power, that country might now be prosperous 
and happy. 

When we visited Miss Edgeworth she had pub- 
lished her last work, " Helen," and was writing 
another to be called " Taking for Granted," but I 
never heard of its being published. She told me 
that she meant to show the mischief of taking 
things for granted, and acting upon them as if 
they were known facts, and she begged me to 
send her any instances of the evil consequences 
of " taking for granted " which fell under my 
observation. 



128 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XV. 



ANDRIANE. 



I HAPPENED to be in Paris in 1887 .when 
Monsieur Andriane returned from his ten 
years' imprisonment in Austrian dungeons, and 
I was present in the saloon of Madame Reeamier, 
when he gave a most affecting account of his suf- 
ferings. He was in the prime of life, and had 
been handsome, but he was prematurely aged by 
all he had endured. His sight was much im- 
paired by writing on the walls of his dungeon 
with scarcely any light, and he was lamed for 
life by the heavy irons he had worn so many 
years. I can see him now as he was seated in the 
centre of a circle of eager listeners, answering 
questions, and describing with great pathos the 
effect on his mind of the solitary imprisonment 
which he endured for a part of the time. He 
was a young Frenchman travelling for pleasure, 
and had had nothing to do with the politics of 
Europe. On leaving Geneva to go to Milan, a 
friend asked him to be the bearer of some papers 
which he wished to send to that city. Entirely 
ignorant of their being the communications of a 



ANDRIANE. 129 

secret society, plotting against the Austrian gov- 
ernment, he took charge of them. On his way 
over the Simplon, his carriage was upset, and 
many of its contents fell over the precipice at the 
side of the road, and among them the portfolio 
containing those dangerous papers. His servant 
insisted on going down the precipice after his mas- 
ter's effects, and when all but the portfolio were 
recovered, Monsieur Andriane begged him not to 
risk his life for that, but the man's zeal to serve 
him made him bring that up also. The fatal pa- 
pers arrived at Milan, and before the bearer had 
time to deliver them, they were in the hands of 
the police, and he was arrested. His astonish- 
ment was unbounded, and in his first examina- 
tion it was difficult to make him understand what 
he had done to forfeit his liberty, or of what he 
was accused, but he had enough presence of 
mind to refuse to tell who had given him the pa- 
pers, or to whom they were to be delivered. This 
reserve made him appear to belong to the secret 
society then existing in Milan, and he was there- 
fore considered as plotting against the Austrian 
government, and condemned to the severest im- 
prisonment. 

As soon as he was supposed sufficiently broken 
down to be willing to betray his associates, for the 
sake of better treatment, he was subjected to 
another examination ; but they had mistaken their 

6* I 



130 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY TEARS. 

man. His sense of honor never failed him, and 
during ten years of persecution, he never yielded 
to persuasion, threats, or bribery, but steadily re- 
fused to give any information which could com- 
promise anybody. He suffered accordingly all 
the cruelties inflicted on suspected persons. He 
was asked how he employed his mind during his 
solitary confinement, and told us that for the first 
year he went over his past life, recalling every mi- 
nute circumstance, and kept his mind busy ; after 
that he felt that he was becoming stupid, and 
fearing to be imbecile, he roused himself to fresh 
exertion, and began to recall all that he had ever 
learned from books, and wrote it on the wall with 
the point of a rusty old nail that he found in his 
cell. It was only during the middle of the day 
that the faint light which entered his dungeon 
was sufficient for him to pursue this occupation, 
but he found it very useful, and a great allevia- 
tion. During the many hours of darkness, he 
would recall and prepare what he would write the 
next day. He feared that in a long imprison- 
ment his memory might fail him, and then he 
hoped the writing on the wall would save him 
from imbecility. He had completely covered all 
his walls, as high as he could reach, with fine 
writing, when he was suddenly removed to anoth- 
er dungeon. This was done, he supposed, on pur- 
pose to torment him; but it proved a blessing, 



ANDRIANE. 131 

for he began again, arranged his matter better, 
beginning with his spelling book and grammar, 
and continuing all through his classical educa- 
tion, he wrote down every word he could re- 
member. 

The prison became so fall that it was necessa- 
ry to put two in each dungeon, and Andriane had 
the immense advantage of being associated with 
that excellent man, Gonfalonieri. He could not 
enlarge on the blessed effects of that fellowship. 
It occasioned him too much emotion, and he has- 
tened to the end of his narrative, by saying that 
great exertions were made by his friends to pro- 
cure his liberty, but in vain. The officials hated 
him for his obstinate refusals to answer certain 
questions, and when they found how much he en- 
joyed the society of the noble Gonfalonieri, they 
changed his companion for a very degraded felon. 
This was his greatest trial, but he said, " Gonfa- 
lonieri had taught me how to bear even that." 
He ended by saying, " I owe my liberty at last 
to the perseverance of this dear sister," and he 
laid his hand in the lap of a lady who was sitting 
almost behind him, and nearly hidden from our 
view. The sister now became an object of inter- 
est to the company, and after some conversation 
with her the party broke up. 

I never saw or heard anything of Monsieur An- 
driane for more than twenty years, when I found 



132 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

myself living under the same roof with him and 
his family at Pau, in the south of France. He was 
now happily married, and had one son, nearly of 
age, and a young daughter. They were all skilled 
in music, and the son always played the accom- 
paniments to his mother's singing, which was re- 
markably fine. They had musical parties every 
other week, to which the beau rnonde of Pau 
thought it a great favor to be invited. The mis- 
fortunes of Andriane's youth had taught him to 
prize very highly his present happiness ; he still 
bears about him the ill effects of his long impris- 
onment, and he always kept the anniversary of 
his release from prison as a sacred day. It oc- 
curred whilst I was at Pau, and I sent him a 
handsome bouquet, with a few lines of congratu- 
lation on his present happiness. I never saw a 
person more delighted with a slight attention than 
he was with mine. He called the next day to 
thank me, and was so profuse in his acknowl- 
edgments that I was convinced his more fashion- 
able friends had not noticed the day. 



THE FRENCH STAGE. 133 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FRENCH STAGE. 

IT was my good fortune to be in Paris just in 
time to see Talma and Mile. Georges per- 
form their best characters in the plays of Racine, 
before leaving the stage. The scene which has 
left the most vivid impression on my mind is 
one in the play of Britannicus, where Agrippina 
is reproaching Nero with his faults in a fearless 
and authoritative manner, whilst he is chafing 
with suppressed rage. The perfection of their 
costume, and the excellence of their acting, made 
me feel as though I had seen the real personages 
they were simulating. I preferred Talma's style 
of acting to that of the Kemble school ; for, though 
his style was not less " classical," it had more of 
nature in it. Though every word and movement 
of Talma was studied and finished to the last de- 
gree of perfection, he was less conventional than 
John Kemble. 

Talma's figure reminded me of that of Napo- 
leon, and I can well believe that the latter took 
lessons from the great tragedian, and learned of 
him how best to carry his robes of state. Why 
should not one actor learn of another ? 



134 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Twenty years later, I was again in Paris, and 
again frequented that best of theatres, which is 
subsidized by the government, and is called empha- 
tically Le ThSatre Frangois. Napoleon's favorite 
actress, Mile. Mars, was still attracting crowds to 
see her play in the small pieces, written expressly 
for her, two of which were given on one night. 
She was no longer young, and many considered 
her quite passee ; but on the stage, she still ap- 
peared in the prime of life, and her charming 
acting, elegant carriage, and perfect rendering of 
her part, made her still the idol of the public. 

I saw her in Marie on les Trois JEpoques. In 
the first epoch she appears as a young girl, in 
love with one person, and obliged to marry an- 
other, to save her father from ruin. In the next 
she appears as the faithful and devoted wife, re- 
fusing all attentions and all intimacy with her 
former lover, though her husband, ignorant of 
the love that once existed between them, is con- 
tinually throwing them together. He proposes 
to take a long journey, and leave the quondam 
lover to take care of his wife. This, she posi- 
tively refuses, and insists on accompanying her 
husband. Thus ends the second epoch. In the 
third, she is the mother of a grown-up and beau- 
tiful daughter ; her husband is dead, and her for- 
mer lover is continually at her house, and appears 
to be devoted to her. She remarks with pleasure 






THE FRENCH STAGE. 135 

that her daughter seems very fond of her future 
step-father ; but when asked for a private inter- 
view, and expecting to be solicited to marry him, 
she finds that it is her daughter whom he wants 
as his wife ; and she resigns herself to her fate, 
with the same disinterestedness that has marked 
her whole course of life. 

Mile. Mars contrived to look young enough for 
the first epoch, and won all hearts by the way in 
which she resigned her lover to save her father 
from bankruptcy. As the wife, her behavior to 
her husband was perfect, and might have served 
as a lesson in morals to French wives. As the 
mother, nobly preferring her child's happiness to 
her own, she melted us to pity and sorrow, that 
such a second sacrifice was required of her. 

It was a charming little play, and charmingly 
performed, and made such an impression on my 
mind that I can recall it vividly after a lapse of 
twenty-seven years. 

I also saw Mile. Mars in Valerie, — a blind girl 
who is restored to sight by her lover, — but I 
do not remember the particulars of the story, 
only that it was well performed and a very good 
piece. It would be just the drama for private 
theatricals where there were but few performers. 

Two pieces, in which Mile. Mars did not act, 
made a strong impression on me, as showing a 
great change in the policy of the French govern- 



136 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

ment since my previous visit to Paris. Then 
Louis XVIII. was on the throne : now Louis 
Philippe was king of the French. One of these 
remarkable dramas was called La Viettesse d'un 
Grand Hoi, in which Louis XIV. is represented 
at the close of life, almost imbecile, and man- 
aged and imposed upon by Madame de Mainte- 
non. How one of the house of Bourbon could 
permit le grand Monarque to be shown up in such 
a contemptible plight, I never could comprehend. 
The courtiers were represented as deceiving and 
making fun of the poor old king, and the audience 
sympathized with them. 

I was equally surprised by the acting of an- 
other piece, which favored Protestantism and 
condemned the practices of the Romish Church. 
It was written by Scribe, and called La Famille 
du temps de Luther. It represented a young man, 
just converted to Protestantism, on the point of 
making a profession of it, and joining a Lutheran 
church, when his brother arrives from Rome ex- 
pressly to save him from such damning heresy. 
They have conversations together, which were 
entirely favorable to Protestantism, and betrayed 
the bad morals of the Roman Catholic brother, 
who is a Jesuit. He uses every means to save 
his brother from joining the Protestant Church, 
and considers his soul is safe until that act is per- 
formed. So, when bribes and menaces have failed, 



THE FEENCH STAGE. 137 

he resolves to murder him, in order to save his 
soul from perdition. In his soliloquy before the 
deed, he expresses that dangerous maxim of the 
Church of Rome, that the end justifies the means. 
Very different is the soliloquy of the Lutheran 
brother, the night before he is to make his profes- 
sion of faith. He speaks as a truly devout man, 
and a convert to the religion of Christ, before it 
was corrupted by the Church of Rome. He shows 
himself so true a Christian, that we feel that he 
is fit to die, as he does, by the hand of his brother, 
that night. 

It was plain that the audience sympathized 
with the Protestant brother ; and the wonder was 
how such a piece could be acted in a Roman 
Catholic country, governed by a Roman Catholic 
king with a very bigoted wife. 

Another great treat which I enjoyed that win- 
ter, in Paris, was seeing some of Moliere's best 
comedies at the Theatre Frangais, where every 
part insure to be well performed. L'Fcole des 
Femmes was given with a preparatory scene, in 
which Moliere is represented as reading the play 
to a circle of the haute noblesse belonging to the 
court of Louis XIV. They criticise the pieco, 
and he makes a witty defence. This lasts a short 
time, and then the circle breaks up, and the crit- 
ics request Moliere to give them the whole play 
on the stage. It was a very pretty sight to see so 



138 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

many persons, dressed in the costume of those 
days, and feel assured that they were given cor- 
rectly. 

When we consider the age in which Moliere 
lived, we must award him the merit of having 
done more honor to the female character than 
any of his contemporaries. He showed up the 
evils of mercenary marriages, and was in favor 
of educating women. The weapon with which 
he attacked the prevailing follies of the age was 
ridicule, and he wielded it with a master's hand. 

I heard an anecdote of Mile. Mars, which shows 
that she was not only the mouth-piece for Moliere's 
wit, but had wit of her own. She was a warm 
partisan of Napoleon I., and adhered to him dur- 
ing his exile in Elba. The Grarde du Corps of 
the Emperor was considered to be mere parade 
soldiers, and to have no military character at all. 
Several of them were walking in the gardens of 
the Tuileries, when they met Mile. Mars, and 
made some impertinent remark, on which she 
said, " Sachez, Messieurs, que Mars, et le Grarde 
du Corps, rCont rien de cornmun ensemble" This 
bon mot made her more popular than ever with 
the Parisians. 

During Napoleon's absence in Elba, his friends 
used the violet as his emblem, his countersign, his 
name. They had a phrase by which to distin- 
guish his partisans. They would say, in a care- 



THE FRENCH STAGE. 139 

less way, " Les violettes reviendront avec le prin- 
temps" And if the reply was, "JEh Men!" they 
knew they were speaking to a partisan ; but if 
the reply was anything else, the conversation was 
turned away from the interests of Napoleon. 

When he marched triumphantly back to his 
capital, he showed himself to the people by going 
to the theatre. Mile. Mars was playing that 
night, and had on a dress trimmed with violets. 



140 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MR. AND MRS. THOMAS HOPE. 

THE most brilliant party that I was ever at 
in London, was given by Mrs. Thomas 
Hope, the daughter of the Archbishop of Tuam, 
and wife of the learned author of " Anastatius," 
a wealthy merchant of Amsterdam resident in 
London. They lived in a corner house in Haiiey 
Street, at the West end of London, and it was 
large enough to contain fourteen rooms en suite. 
These were fitted up with great taste and judg- 
ment, according to the ideas of Mr. Hope, who 
had written a book on furniture and upholstery, 
and introduced into England the classical forms 
which have ever since been in use. This house 
was like a museum, for every room was fitted up 
in a different style. One was a la Chinoise, and 
filled with curious and beautiful objects from 
China ; another was in Persian style, full of East- 
ern magnificence. A Grecian hall, adorned with 
statuary, delighted the eye, and a French saloon, 
full of mirrors, with objects of vertu, marquetry and 
ormolu, Sevres porcelain and bronzes, claimed 
the attention of the visitor. The English apart- 



MR. AND MRS. THOMAS HOPE. 141 

ment, emphatically so called, was the banqueting 
hall, across one end of which was a long table 
filled with every delicacy of the season, and where 
you took refreshments whenever you pleased. 
There were so many valuable things scattered all 
through these rooms, that, as I was afterwards 
told, there was a policeman, dressed as a gentle- 
man, on guard in every room. The fashionables 
and grandees laughed at the wealthy Dutchman, 
and called him Furniture Hope ; but they were 
glad enough to throng his house and see his fine 
collection of paintings and sculpture, nor was his 
beautiful wife a less attraction. She was so di- 
minutive in her person, and so handsome hi her 
face, that she was called the pocket Venus. The 
Prince Regent requested her to allow him to have 
her full-length likeness in enamel, for his collec- 
tion of beauties ; and Mr. Bone, the celebrated 
painter in enamel, made a lovely picture of her. 
The night that I saw her, she received her com- 
pany standing on a low stool, and was dressed in 
gold-colored satin trimmed with black velvet, and 
had on a superb set of diamonds. 

I went with some particular friends of the 
Hopes. We had dined at a house only a mile 
from Mr. Hope's, but it took us two hours to go 
that distance, in a line of carriages that extended 
all the way there, and was checked in its progress 
every time a carriage stopped to set down its com- 



142 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

pany. Directions had been given in the morning 
papers for the course the carriages were to take, 
so as to avoid confusion. They were all to ap- 
proach through the same streets and in the same 
direction, and after setting down, to proceed 
through certain other streets, and then fall into 
line again and approach the house in the same 
way as before. On reaching Mr. Hope's door, 
the footman was to give the name of his mistress, 
and " Mrs. Smith's carriage stops the way ! " was 
vociferated by the servants up the grand stair- 
case to the entrance of the first room, and woe 
be to Mrs. Smith if she did not hear and attend 
to the announcement, for her carriage would be 
ordered to move on, and she must wait till all the 
company was gone, before she could get it again. 
I was with friends who knew exactly what to do ; 
so after a few words with the exquisite little 
hostess, we sauntered slowly through the rooms, 
all of which were filled but not crowded. We 
soon came to the large English drawing-room, 
where we felt " the soft crush of aristocracy, " 
and pressing gently through it, we came suddenly 
on an open space, in which a large, fat gentleman 
was bowing to a lady who was just introduced to 
him. It was the Prince Regent ; I knew him by 
his bow, and we drew back so as not to intrude 
on the magic circle around royalty. We paused 
a few minutes to observe him. A once handsome 



MR. AND MRS. THOMAS HOPE. 143 

man, bloated and disfigured by dissipation. The 
lady just introduced was a great wit, and she 
soon made him shake his fat sides with laughter. 
On a raised seat, that ran round one half of the 
room, sat Lady Hertford, his chere amie at that 
time, and very handsome still, though far from 
young ; very stout and tall, with a great display 
of neck, shoulders, and arms, as fair as alabaster. 
There she sat, in dignified composure, but watch- 
ing the Prince. We soon passed on to complete 
our view of the fourteen rooms. They terminated 
in an elegant little boudoir, where we found only 
one person, a fashionable dandy of that day. He 
was standing before a mirror that reflected his 
whole person, and adjusting his hair and cravat. 
I knew at once that it was Mr. Skeflfington, hav- 
ing seen him mimicked by Mathews the comedian, 
in his entertainment called " Mathews at Home." 
As soon as we had completed the tour of the 
rooms, it was time to place ourselves where we 
could hear the announcement of our carriage. 
Standing in the hall at the top of the staircase, 
we had time to look at a large picture of Belshaz- 
zar's Feast, and on our way home I listened to 
the following account of it. 

Mr. Hope bought a great many pictures, and 
always employed the same man to clean them and 
put them in order before they were hung. He 
was on the point of leaving London for his seat 



144 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

in Surrey when the picture of Belshazzar's Feast 
came into his possession, and he left it with this 
man to do the needful, and hang it in the hall. 
On his return to town, he examined the picture, 
and found that a piece had been cut off the top 
of it, and the cleaner had put his own name in an 
obscure part of the picture as the painter of it. 
Such liberties taken with a valuable picture by an 
old master, were not to be endured, and the cul- 
prit was dismissed with a sharp reprimand. Be- 
ing something of an artist, he resolved to avenge 
himself by making a picture of Mr. and Mrs. 
Hope as Beauty and the Beast. Mr. Hope was 
as ugly as his wife was handsome, and he was 
represented as the Beast, holding up a full purse 
to the Beauty. This picture was exhibited as a 
shilling show, and hundreds flocked to see it be- 
fore the family knew anything about it. At last 
a brother of Mrs. Hope, who was an officer in a 
regiment then on duty at the palace, and there- 
fore wore his uniform, entered the room where 
this picture was, drew his sword and cut it into 
strips. The painter sued him for damages, but 
all he could recover was the price of the canvas 
and paint ! 

Mr. Hope, when I knew him, had not published 
his remarkable novel called " Anastasius " ; but, 
when that appeared, his book on furniture was 
forgotten, and the public learned to appreciate 



MR. AND MRS. THOMAS HOPE. 145 

him as a fine scholar and a good writer. He was 
very desirous of a son and heir to all his wealth, 
and three times did his wife present him with a 
son who died in infancy. The fourth son lived to 
be five years old. I saw him then, a beautiful 
boy, the idol of his mother, but I do not know 
whether he lived to grow up. 




146 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE MISSES ALLEN. — MRS. SISMONDI. — THE YOUNG 
WIDOW. 

THE fathers of families are very apt to hold 
up, as models of good behavior, some one 
set of girls whom they wish their daughters to 
imitate ; and when I was growing up, the Miss 
Aliens were the examples always set before me. 
If I wished to do anything, of which my father 
disapproved, he would say, " You never heard 
of one of the Miss Aliens doing such a thing as 
that." When this was said, I knew there was no 
hope for me, so I resigned myself to be as wise 
and sober as those pattern girls. They were of 
an ancient Welch family, and when I knew them, 
their parents were dead, and they lived with their 
bachelor brother, a man of mark in the county 
which he represented in Parliament, and very 
agreeable in private life. His house was one of 
our most delightful visiting places. The sisters 
were better educated and more highly cultivated 
than was common, at that time, among young 
ladies in South Wales, and a yearly visit to Lon- 
don introduced them to many distinguished peo- 



MRS. SISMONDI. 147 

pie. One of them married Sir Jamss Mackintosh, 
two married Wedgwoods, and one was the wife 
of Sismondi, the historian of Italy. 

My husband and I were spending a few weeks 
in Geneva, in the autumn of 1838, and there I 
renewed my acquaintance with Mrs. Sismondi, 
who retained a lively interest in the friend of 
her youth, and paid us every kind attention. 
She lived in a villa, a little way out of the 
town, and received her friends on one evening 
in every week. To those receptions we always 
went, and had the most delightful intercourse 
with her and her accomplished husband, who 
spoke English well, and had a great respect for 
republican institutions. He gave us one evening 
a very interesting account of his flight into Swit- 
zerland, with his invalid mother, when obliged, 
by his liberal opinions, to quit his native land. 
It so enchained my attention, at the time, that I 
hardly remarked, among the guests, Mr. Night- 
ingale and his two young daughters. Little did 
any one then present anticipate the wide-world 
fame that Miss Florence Nightingale would one 
day acquire. 

We met at Madame Sismondi' s the celebrated 
botanist, M. de Candolle, and by way of making 
conversation, I told him that in London people 
were making plants grow under glass shades, 
shut up tight, without additional air or water. 



148 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

He listened very incredulously, and made me de- 
scribe minutely every example of it I had seen. 
The subject so interested him that in a few days 
he set off for London to examine into the matter 
for himself. His absence, at that time, was a 
disappointment to the Duke of Devonshire, who 
came to Geneva expressly to talk with him about 
air-plants, which were then all the rage. 

When the loved and respected Miss Allen of 
Cresselly was first engaged to marry an Italian, 
her friends trembled for her happiness ; but could 
they have seen her, as I did, after twenty years 
of married life, they would have been convinced 
she was blest with a true union, and that she and 
her Italian husband were as much lovers then as 
any bride and bridegroom could be. Having no 
children, they were all the world to each other. 
The literary labors of the successful author never 
interfered with his domestic affections. He was 
full of consideration and tenderness for his wife, 
and had a most cordial kindness for her friends. 

Recalling this visit to Geneva, reminds me of 
our journey from there to Turin, over Mont 
Cenis, and of an incident which occurred at San 
Michele. We arrived early in a fine October 
evening, and took a walk which brought us un- 
expectedly to a grand view of Mont Cenis, just 
as it was brilliantly illuminated by the setting 
sun. At first several other snowy peaks were 



THE YOUNG WIDOW. 149 

equally lighted up, but by degrees all faded but 
that one, showing how much higher it was than 
the rest, yet the next day we were to cross its 
summit. Returning to our inn, which we had 
left so quiet that it hardly seemed like a public 
house, we found it all bustle and confusion, and 
I heard groans and cries from a chamber above 
our parlor. 

On inquiry, we were told that a gentleman 
and lady, with a maid-servant, had arrived from 
Turin, and on entering the inn, the lady ran with 
all speed up stairs and threw herself out of a 
chamber-window. She broke no bones', but was 
much hurt and bruised, and it was her groans 
that I heard. I immediately sent a message to 
the gentleman offering my services and the use 
of my medicine-chest. He came to thank me in 
person, declined my aid, and told me the lady was 
only twenty-two years of age, the wife of a Brazil 
merchant who had died suddenly at Naples. As 
he was Charge d' Affaires of the Emperor of Brazil, 
he had been requested to escort this lady as far 
as Turin, where her friends were to meet him 
and relieve him of his very unpleasant charge ; 
but no one came, and he should be obliged to go 
on with her to Geneva, which was very incon- 
venient and disagreeable to him. Not one word 
of sympathy or compassion for the distracted 
widow, nothing but his own disinclination to ac- 



150 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

company her, was apparent in his conversation 
with me. He gave me his own history and his 
wife's, none of which did I care to hear ; my in- 
quiries were only for the unfortunate lady, and 
of her he did not care to speak. However, I did 
find out that she was Madame Piton, and that 
she had not been distracted until to-day, on their 
way from Turin, and then I surmised that the 
egotism of this unfeeling man had made him say 
such hard things about her friends not meeting 
her there, that it was more than she could bear, 
added to her deep affliction, and that it was his 
want of sympathy for her which had driven her 
to despair and caused her to throw herself from 
the window. I was disgusted with this Chevalier 
S. de Mac£do, and begged leave to see the lady 
and to watch with her that night ; but he would 
not let me do either ; he thought her maid was 
sufficient. I sat up late that night, writing my 
journal, and had not all been silent and still in 
the poor lady's room before I retired, I should 
have made an attempt to see her; hoping she 
was at rest, I went to bed, but it was long before 
I could sleep for thinking of her. 

The next morning we started on our journey 
over Mont Cenis, before I could hear anything 
of Madame Piton, and I never expected to hear 
of her again, but I did. The next spring I was 
in Paris, and I searched in vain for the lady with 



THE YOUNG WIDOW. 151 

whom I had once boarded for six months, and for 
whom I felt a real friendship. She used to con- 
fide to me her troubles, and told me she had been 
happily married in Marseilles, and as long as she 
lived there her husband behaved well. He re- 
moved to Paris, was well established there in a 
good business, but he took to gambling, reduced 
himself to poverty, and then committed some 
crime which sent him to prison for several years. 
Meanwhile she supported herself and two sons, 
and when they were sufficiently educated she 
meant to leave the country, before her husband 
was liberated. Not finding her in Paris, I sup- 
posed that she had accomplished her purpose. 
My husband and I went to Rouen on our way to 
England, and took the steamer on the Seine for 
our conveyance. On that boat I found my friend 
Madame Reybert, then on her way to Brazil. She 
had intended to leave Paris three months sooner, 
but had been detained by her care of a friend, 
who had been made insane by grief for the loss 
of her husband and the total want of sympathy in 
all around her. I told her of the lady who threw 
herself out of a window from the same cause. 
She exclaimed, " That must be my friend, Madame 
Piton ; she did that on her journey with a selfish 
monster who had no pity for her." Then she 
gave a moving account of the inhumanity of that 
man and the indifference of her maid. "I cured 



152 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 



her by love and sympathy. One of her delusions 
was mistaking me for a sister, whom she loved 
very much, and the happiness which that gave 
her aided in her recovery. She will return to 
her mother and sister in Brazil, and there I am 
going to live near them, for they are old friends 
of mine." A happy sequel this, to the history of 
both those ladies ! 



LADY MANSFIELD. 153 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LADY MANSFIELD. — CHILDREN IN A CAVE. — THE 
HAUNTED HOUSE. 

I RECOLLECT a notable instance of the mis- 
chief done by a lady's supposing herself to 
have a head for business, when she really knew 
nothing about it ; and as I have already described 
the rise and progress of the town of Milford, 
under the management of the Honorable Charles 
Greville, I will now tell of its decline and fall 
under the misrule of Lady Mansfield, whose sec- 
ond husband was the Honorable Robert Fulk 
Greville, brother of Charles, and heir to his 
uncle, Sir William Hamilton. Her first husband 
was the celebrated jurist, Lord Mansfield, who 
showed what his feelings had been towards her, 
by giving directions that after his death his heart 
should be taken out and buried by his first wife. 
She had tried in vain to rule her first husband, 
but when she married her second, she took the 
reins into her own hands, and he submitted en- 
tirely to her government. As soon as the Milford 
estate came into her possession, she announced 
her dissatisfaction with the management of it, 
and resolved to change everything. 
7* 



154 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

It was in vain that her agent told her, that the 
building up of a town on her land had increased 
its value fourfold : she disapproved of long leases 
and low rents, and would alter all that. So down 
she came to Milford, with her husband and chil- 
dren, governess and servants, and put up at the 
Nelson Hotel. She began by disputing the leases 
which were granted, some for three lives, others 
for ninety-nine years. The ground-rent had been 
made low in order to induce people to build. 
She could not comprehend the policy of this, so 
she summoned her tenants to her presence. The 
upper class went, expecting to be received as 
guests, and to be complimented on the benefit 
they had bestowed on the estate, by building good 
houses upon it. Great, therefore, was their dis- 
appointment and indignation when they were 
received on the same footing as the humblest 
householder there, and told that their leases 
should all be broken. They appealed to the hon- 
orable husband of her Ladyship, but he sanctioned 
all she did. Every inhabitant became her enemy, 
though the event proved that she could not put 
her threat into execution. 

Not satisfied with this aggressive act, she next 
attacked the Royal Dock- Yard, which it had cost 
Charles Greville the greatest exertion of his in- 
terest with the government to have established 
there, and which, with the whale fishery, was the 



LADY MANSFIELD. 155 

cause of the rapid growth of the town. A piece 
of rough, rocky land, of no value to Lady Mans- 
field, or to any one else, had been wrongfully en- 
closed within the boundary of the dock-yard, and 
she claimed it so vehemently, that a commissioner^ 
was sent down from London to look into the mat- 
ter. He looked too deeply into the affair for the 
benefit of her Ladyship. He reported that the 
site was wholly unfit for a building-yard, and rec- 
ommended the removal of the whole concern to 
the other side of the haven, and several miles 
higher up, where he had discovered a tract of 
land belonging to Government, and admirably 
adapted to the purpose. In due time orders 
came to take down the vessels, then on the 
stocks, and remove them to the new dock-yard, 
near Pembroke, with all the materials belong- 
ing to his Majesty. 

My father was so tormented by Lady Mansfield, 
that he also removed his fishery from Milford, 
and the town was left without any business of 
consequence. A large house, built by my father, 
was burnt down as soon as completed, and as her 
ladyship had disputed his lease, she could not 
oblige him to rebuild it, so th3 ultimate loss was 
hers. She did, at last, so ruin the place, that she 
never dared to show her face there again, and it 
was said of Milford, that you might fire a cannon 
down the Main street, without danger of hitting 
any one. 



IbQ EECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Only twenty miles from Milford was the pleas- 
ant sea-side resort called Tenby, little known in 
my day, but now a fashionable bathing-place. It 
was a small town, of poor houses, built on a pro- 
jecting point of land, with a fine hard sand-beach 
on each side, giving the bathers the choice of the 
north or south sands. Curiously shaped rocks 
form the coast, and one large cave, which is filled 
with water at high tide, but remains empty many 
hours in the day, was once the scene of great 
alarm to a governess and three little girls who 
were caught in it by the tide. She, who should 
have seen to the safety of her charge, was so ab- 
sorbed by an agreeable book, that she did not 
observe the rising tide, till the possibility of re- 
treat was cut off by it. She was terribly fright- 
ened, but concealed her alarm from the children, 
as well as she could, and made them climb up to 
a high ledge of rock and sit there with her. To 
pass away the time, she told them stories ; but 
they grew very weary, and when the bottom of 
the cave was filled with water, and the waves be- 
gan to dash upon the rocks beneath their feet, 
they were much terrified, and it was all the gov- 
erness could do td comfort them and assuage 
their fears, whilst her own courage was ebbing 
fast ; at last the youngest child fell asleep in her 
arms and the other two nestled close to her, on 
either side. There was no higher ledge of rock 



CHILDREN m A CAVE. 157 

on which they could sit, and she feared they 
would fall into the flood below if she attempted 
to make them stand on the rock they were sitting 
on. As soon as the arched entrance into the 
cave was covered by the advancing tide, they 
were in perfect darkness, and that added much 
to the fearfulness of their position. At last the 
children cried out, in distressed tones, that their 
feet were wet and the water was coming all over 
them. To which the governess replied, " Mine 
have been wet for some time ; but never mind 
that ; I don't think it will come higher than our 
knees." It was only after some mental exercise 
and earnest prayer that she was able to say this. 
Her words proved true. The tide did rise to her 
lap, and swelled up against them and all around 
them fearfully; but in a few more minutes its 
force seemed less, and presently they could be 
certain that it began to lower. Relieved from 
their terror, the two older children fell asleep, 
and then the governess was very anxious lest 
they should fall from their narrow perch and be 
drowned after all. Very long did the time seem 
before the tide retreated far enough for a little 
light to enter at the top of the entrance to the 
cave ; but at length that light came, and not 
long after was heard the welcome sound of voices, 
and as soon as a boat could enter, one came to 
their relief, with the father of the children in it. 



158 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

He found his little girls refreshed by their nap, 
and as lively and full of prattle as if no trouble 
had come near them ; but their unhappy govern- 
ess was utterly overcome. She could do nothing 
but weep, and afterwards fell into melancholy and 
died insane. 

Another instance of the dangers of the sea to 
those on land occurs to me. A lady of my ac- 
quaintance, living by the seaside in England, 
walked down to the beach, accompanied by her 
two little girls and their tutor, to see the surf 
after a storm. They passed round a high pro- 
jecting cliff, which was then far enough from the 
water for them to walk round it dry-shod. The 
grandeur of the waves and the curious things the 
children found in the rock-pools, beguiled the 
time, and when, on their way back, they reached 
the cliff, they found that the surf had sent some 
of its waters to the foot of it. They thought 
they could easily pass round it, if they did not 
mind wetting their feet, so the mother gathered 
up her dress and told the little girls to follow her. 
Just as she was passing the cliff, a wave dashed 
up and bore her off into the sea, where she was 
drowned, and the children were only saved by the 
tutor's catching hold of them and pulling them 
back. They returned home by another and a 
longer way, to carry to their father the astound- 
ing news that their mother was drowned. He 



SEASIDE ACCIDENT. 159 

rushed down to the fatal spot, but saw no sign 
of what had happened ; he haunted the shore by 
day and by night, and had men watching all the 
time, in hopes of recovering the body, but it 
never appeared. 

Another and a very different kind of danger 
attending a residence by the sea, was told by a 
descendant of the family in which it occurred, at 
a breakfast to which I was invited. 

In a very large, old-fashioned habitation, perched 
on the brow of a beetling cliff, on the South coast 
of England, lived a widowed lady and her chil- 
dren, with a large retinue of servants, and every 
luxury that wealth could give, but without the 
society of neighbors. The nearest town was sev- 
eral miles off, and there were no country-seats 
near them ; but the estate had been long in the 
family, and, though rather lonely, it was a favor- 
ite residence. The house had originally been a 
castle ; but had been so altered and added to that 
little remained of its former appearance. Various 
rooms indicated, by their furniture and the pic- 
tures on the walls, the time to which they be- 
longed ; and long corridors led to many apart- 
ments never used by the family. It did, how- 
ever, happen that a person was ill in one of these 
distant rooms, and a nurse, who was watching the 
sick woman, was greatly terrified by seeing the 
head of one of the old portraits on the wall move 



160 EECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

like a living one. She was sure that the eyes 
winked, and the head moved up and down. She 
was transfixed with terror, but controlled herself 
so far as not to scream. When she recovered the 
power of moving, she ran off to tell her mistress 
what she had seen, and that she could not possibly 
return to that haunted chamber. Several persons 
went to the room, but saw no motion in the old 
picture, and the poor nurse was well laughed at 
for her alarm. The next night, the housekeeper 
offered to watch in that same chamber, and she 
was sent screaming through the corridor by the 
same motion in the picture. The sick person was 
now removed to another part of the house, and 
the haunted chamber was locked up and never 
used. 

Some time after this occurrence, the oldest son 
returned from a long absence in the army, and 
on hearing of the haunted chamber, he declared 
that he would find out if there were any marvel- 
lous appearances, by passing a night there him- 
self. His mother and sisters tried in vain to dis- 
suade him from it: the young soldier chose to 
show that he had no fear of ghosts or burglars. 
He said he should not go to bed ; he would sit up 
armed, and have a bright wood fire or a good 
lamp to read by. 

The family retired, leaving him to what they 
considered a useless vigil ; but the next morning 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 161 

lie joined them, looking very pale and haggard, 
and refused to say whether anything had occurred 
or not. He locked up the room, and forbade any 
one going near it. In a few days he told his 
mother that they must all quit that house, and 
live elsewhere. She asked him if he were going 
to bring a wife there, as the estate was his. He 
said no; that he should pull down the house, and 
raze it to the ground. "That is a new way to 
get rid of ghosts," said his mother. " This is to 
get rid of what is worse than ghosts," was his 
reply. But he refused all further explanation. 

The old mansion was pulled down, and many 
years after it became known that a cave, under 
that wing of the castle which contained the haunt- 
ed room, was used by smugglers, who wished to 
frighten the family from occupying the rooms 
above that cave, lest they should hear the noises 
they made in carrying their brandy casks into it. 
One of the gang had cut a hole through a thin 
partition between the chamber and a dressing- 
room, and made the aperture just behind a large 
portrait. He had removed the painting from the 
frame, and put himself in its place, on purpose to 
frighten the family, and make them think the 
chamber was haunted. This plan succeeded so 
well that the smugglers would have kept that part 
of the castle uninhabited, had it not been for the 
conduct of the son and heir of the house. When 



162 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

he was watching there, and occupied with his 
book, two smugglers entered suddenly through a 
trap-door in the dressing-room, and presenting 
their pistols to his breast, ordered him to remove 
from the table where his arms were laid. A third 
and fourth man entered and disposed of them. 
They then told him that they were smugglers, 
and used a cave underneath, and swore they 
would carry him off and kill him, unless he took 
an oath never to speak of what happened that 
night, and to pull down the whole house. 



MAEIAGES DE CONVEYANCE. 163 



CHAPTER XX. 

MAEIAGES DE CONVENANCES. 

IN Paris, where every father thinks he has an 
undoubted right to dispose of his children in 
marriage, according to his own ideas of expedi- 
ency, I heard the most vehement denunciation of 
the practice, in a public lecture by Professor 
Chasles of the Institute, a little dark man, with 
a monkey face and gestures to match. He took 
for his subject Dickens's story of " Hard Times," 
in which a delicate young girl, educated at home, 
and entirely ignorant of the world, is made, by 
her father, to marry one of his business friends, 
who is twice her age, and very vulgar and dis- 
agreeable besides. She bears her trials with sto- 
ical endurance, putting a constant restraint upon 
her words and actions, and locking up within her 
own breast all the bitter feelings to which her sit- 
uation gives rise. 

At last she makes the acquaintance of a man 
whom she could love, and then she feels the full 
force of her wretched connection with a man 
whom she cannot love. Her good principles pre- 
vent her from giving way to this new-born pas- 



164 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAKS. 

sion ; but she can no longer live with her husband, 
and, in her extremity of suffering, she resolves to 
tell her father the whole truth, and call on him 
to save her from sin and misery, by separating 
her from her uncongenial partner. That inter- 
view, between the father and daughter, is one of 
thrilling interest; nothing can be more forcibly 
portrayed than the utter wretchedness of such a 
marriage, and the dangers to which it leads. 

With this for his subject, the Professor was 
eloquent in his denunciation of manages de con- 
venance, and his audience sympathized with him. 
Any one hearing his vehemence, and the plaudits 
which followed, would have supposed that the 
time had fully come for such marriages to be 
done away with forever. But alas ! they are still 
going on. 

I knew a young girl who had the courage to 
resist one of these forced marriages ; but she had 
English as well as French blood in her veins. She 
and her brother (we will call them Antoinette 
and Philippe) were the children of a French offi- 
cer married to an English lady. He died when 
they were young, and, on their mother's marrying 
a second time, they were sent to the care of an 
uncle and aunt in Paris, who had no children, 
and who brought up their niece and nephew as 
well as if they had been their own. When An- 
toinette was old enough to leave school, her uncle 



MARIAGES-DE CONVENANCE. 165 

began to look out for a suitable matcli for her, 
and no one seemed to linn so desirable as a rich 
old bachelor who was his intimate friend, and an 
habitue of the house. 

When the aunt informed her niece that a hus- 
band was found for her, she was much surprised ; 
but when told who it was, she could not believe 
that her aunt was in earnest ; so she treated it as 
a joke, and laughed at the idea of her ever mar- 
rying that old gentleman, on whose knee she had 
sat from childhood up. When compelled, at last, 
to believe that her aunt was in earnest, she pro- 
tested against the match, and declared it should 
never take place. Her aunt said nothing then, 
but began to make the necessary preparations, 
and always spoke as if it were a settled affair, and 
called the gentlemen kerfutur. 

The unhappy girl felt as if chains were silently 
forming around her, and all her efforts to break 
loose from them were fruitless. She consulted 
her brother, who was a little older than herself. 
He advised her to talk with her uncle. She dared 
not do it, unless he would accompany her ; but 
he very wisely refused, saying, " I had better not 
appear in the matter till you have tried all your 
means of escape, and, when you fail, I will come 
to your aid. You shall never marry that man." 
Encouraged by this, she ventured to remonstrate 
with her uncle; but he treated her opposition 



166 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

with supreme contempt, and told her his decision 
was irrevocable, and she would live to thank him 
for it. He said young girls knew nothing about 
married life, and must always abide by the judg- 
ment of their friends. Driven to despair by this 
talk with her uncle, she sought her brother, and 
told him she would drown herself in the Seine 
rather than submit to this hated marriage. He 
calmed her fears, advised her to behave as if she 
were resigned to her fate, and he would run off 
with her to England as soon as he could make the 
necessary preparations. He arranged everything 
so well, that he did carry off his sister, and place 
her in safety with her mother ; but, in so doing,' 
he felt that he was ruining his own prospects in 
life. His uncle would be so enraged at what he 
had done, as never to receive him again. His 
step-father was a wise and good man. He under- 
took to make his peace with his uncle, and, after 
a long correspondence, Philippe was allowed to 
return to his studies in Paris, and became even- 
tually his uncle's heir. Antoinette remained 
under the roof of her step-father, who kept a 
boarding-school for boys. One of these fell in 
love with the handsome French girl. As he was 
an only son, and heir to a large fortune, her 
mother, from a sense of honor, did all she could 
to prevent the growth of this love affair. But the 
young folks kept it up, and became mutually 
attached. 



MARIAGES DE CONVENANCE. 167 

Having run away once to avoid a match, it was 
very natural that Antoinette should think now of 
running away to secure a union with the youth 
she loved. So off they went one fine morning, 
and were lost to pursuit in a large city, where 
they remained hidden for two weeks, and then 
they suddenly appeared at our house in Bath. As 
they entered, I was reading a letter from Antoi- 
nette's mother, asking me if I knew where her 
daughter was, and imploring me to tell her if I 
did. The bridegroom was such a darling of his 
widowed mother that he could not offend her; 
and when she saw his bride, she was so fascinated 
by her that she welcomed her as a daughter ; and 
this love match proved a very happy one. I say 
this one did, for I would not be supposed to mean 
that all love matches are happy, or that all inter- 
ested matches are unhappy ; but I do consider 
that all marriages, not founded on a strong and 
disinterested attachment, are wrong, and entail 
untold misery on the wretched beings so yoked. 

In connection with this subject, I remember 
talking about it to a large class of young girls 
assembled in the studio of a female artist in Paris, 
to learn crayon drawing. My younger sister went 
there to take lessons, and I went with her. We 
were introduced as " les demoiselles Anglaises." 
As soon as the teacher had placed my sister's 
easel, and given her a subject to copy, she left the 



168 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

room ; and no sooner was she gone than all draw- 
ing ceased, and one young lady asked me if, in 
England, we did not marry for love. I told her 
we did, and then they were all very anxious to 
know how that could be brought about. " Com- 
ment cela se fait il" resounded from all sides. 
Feeling very willing to stir up a mutinous spirit 
against manages de convenance, I gave them a 
full description of the intercourse allowed in Eng- 
land between young girls and young men of the 
same class. I spoke of country life there, with 
its fine large mansions filled with guests, whose 
amusements were riding, walking, boating, fish- 
ing, balls, and parties. I told them how prefer- 
ences were shown, and how returned, and de- 
scribed all the steps that led to a love match, 
approved, though not made, by the parents. 
Those poor young creatures listened to me as if 
their lives depended on what I was saying ; and 
when I had done, a general exclamation of wonder 
and admiration made so much noise that I could 
only hear distinctly what a girl near me said. 
" English wives are held up to us as models of vir- 
tue ; but I do not see what merit they have when 
they choose their husbands. It is easy enough to 
be a good wife to a man of your choice." 

Here the teacher entered, scolded the girls for 
having done so little, and the lesson ended. On 
our way home, my sister found fault with my 



MARIAGES DE CONVENANCE. 169 

having given such a favorable picture of love- 
matches in England, and said she should, at the 
next lesson, tell them how many of those love- 
matches proved, in time, to be very unhappy 
ones. She thought it was unkind to make them 
earnestly desire what they could not possibly ob- 
tain. 

I have known women in England who had too 
much sentiment to marry for money, or for an 
establishment, or indeed from any selfish motive, 
but who were willing to sacrifice themselves for 
the sake of some advantage to be gained by a be- 
loved brother, or sister, or mother,— not being at 
all aware that in so doing they were committing 
a sin. Several instances of this mistaken gener- 
osity have come under my observation, and it has 
always resulted in the sacrifice being made in 
vain, for the person who was to be benefited 
died, and the poor victim lived a long life of 
wretchedness. 

I was well acquainted with one of those unhap- 
py wives. She and her brother were left orphans 
when very young, and had been brought up by 
an uncle, a sordid and hard-hearted man. Hav- 
ing no affection lavished upon them by , they 

were all the more attached to each other. When 
the boy grew up, his uncle intended to place him 
in some situation wholly distasteful to him, while 
there was another career open to him which he 

8 



170 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

much desired. I forget what either of them 
was, but I know that the uncle agreed to let his 
nephew follow his inclination, on one condition 
only, and that was that his sister should marry a 
rich linen draper, whose suit she had rejected, 
and for whom she felt a great distaste. She be- 
longed to a class much above a retail shopkeeper 
in London, and felt it a degradation to be married 
to one. After a long and painful struggle, her 
love for her brother triumphed over all other 
feelings, and when he had obtained the situation 
he desired, she gave her hand to the linen draper, 
who had behaved very well during his courtship. 
Immediately after the marriage ceremony, the 
bride and groom set off on a wedding tour. On 
stopping to dine at a hotel, they ordered a roast 
fowl for their dinner. When it was served the 
bridegroom cut off both wings, with the meat of 
the breast, for himself, and pushed the remains 
over to his bride. She thought at first that he 
was doing it as a good joke, and expected her 
share of the white meat ; but he was far enough 
from joking. He was beginning that course of 
conduct which he continued all through life, as a 
retaliation for her refusal of his first offer, and as 
the means of taking down her pride, and showing 
her that he was her lord and master. Her con- 
dition was one of hopeless misery ; her brother's 
happiness was her only consolation, and that was 
taken from her by his early death. 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 171 



CHAPTER XXI. 

UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 

ANOTHER instance occurs to me of the 
wretchedness consequent upon marriages 
without love, in the case of a very young girl 
sacrificed to the sordid calculations of a weak 
and ambitious mother. Too young to compre- 
hend what she was about, she was led as a lamb 
to the slaughter. 

A worldly-minded mother, with seven grown- 
up daughters, must, in England, have her head 
full of schemes, and her heart full of anxiety, as 
to how to dispose of them in marriage. Men in 
that country are more careful than in this, how 
they enter into matrimony before they have am- 
ple means to support a wife, and those who have 
sufficient incomes are slower in making a choice. 

Mrs. B was therefore much pleased when a 

wealthy merchant proposed for her fourth daugh- 
ter ; but he was not fully accepted when her 
youngest girl, Olivia, came home from school 
for the last time, and was to begin her career as 
a young lady. She was the prettiest one of the 
family, and the greatest favorite of her mother, 



172 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTH YEARS. 

who felt a pang of jealousy for her, that any of 
her sisters should be married before her. 

Mrs. B remembered that the gentleman 

now paying his addresses to her daughter, had a 
brother older than himself, who was also a bache- 
lor, and she determined to do all in her power to 
secure him for her darling child. Disparity of 
years was of no consequence in her view, com- 
pared with the fact that, as the oldest son he had 
inherited the largest portion of a wealthy father's 
property, and she thought with much satisfaction 
that, as his wife, Olivia would take precedence 
of her elder sister. Mrs. B gave the young- 
er brother to understand that if he wished his 
own suit to prosper, he must find a match for 
Olivia. On this he proposed to his brother to pay 
his addresses to that pretty girl, and he readily 
consented, for he had always followed in the foot- 
steps of his father, and as he married at forty 
years of age, the son would do the same. So 

Mrs. B had the satisfaction of marrying two 

daughters on the same day, and seeing the 
younger one take precedence of her elder sister. 
So much for the feelings of the mother ; but 
what were those of the favorite child, who was 
thus disposed of? As she was in after life an in- 
timate friend of mine, I have heard from her own 
lips, all the circumstances of her union with that 
rich old bachelor, who never knew an emotion 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 173 

of love, was perfectly indifferent to her when he 
married her, and continued so throughout his 
life. She told me that as soon as she left her 
boarding-school, she began to read romances, and 
was so absorbed by them that she took little notice 
of what was passing around her, until her mother 
told her she had a suitor, and would probably be 
married as soon as her sister. When introduced 
to her future husband she thought him very un- 
like the lovers she had been reading about, but 
her mother told her that real husbands were al- 
ways very different from the heroes of romance. 
She thought she ought to be in love with Mr. 

N before she married him, but was told that 

that would come afterwards ; and so, knowing 
nothing of life, a mere child of seventeen, and 
young of her years, she was hurried into the 
bonds of matrimony, and most irksome did she 
find them ! 

As the wife of the oldest son, she was made mis- 
tress of a sombre old mansion, in the midst of 
the busiest part of the city of London, and had for 
her companions two very stiff and formal maiden 
sisters of her husband. A sad change this from 
her father's cheerful villa a few miles from Lon- 
don, and the large family party she had left. 
She complained of having nothing to do, and 
her sisters-in-law immediately bought a piece of 
linen, cut it up into shirts for their brother, and 



174 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

told her that making them would be a pleasant 
occupation for her, and a proper thing for a wife 
to do. She has laughed since at the docility with 
which she set to work on those shirts, stitching 
away all the morning, from after breakfast till 
luncheon time, at one. At two she and the two 
old ladies took an airing in her new coach, and 
returned the few visits she received from her 
husband's city friends. After a six o'clock din- 
ner, she was expected to play whist all the eve- 
ning till bedtime. 

This dreadfully dull life went on through the 
winter and spring ; but when summer came, Mr. 
N remembered that his honored parents al- 
ways spent a few weeks every year at some water- 
ing-place ; so he would take his wife and sisters 
to Weymouth. 

There, for the first time, this pretty young wife 
saw something of the gay world. She was in a 
large hotel, full of company, and dined every day 
at the public table. Her youth and beauty and 
simple manners attracted much admiration and 
attention, and she began to feel that she was of 
some importance in that society. A new life 
opened before her ; she became a general favorite 
with persons of refinement and of fashion, such as 
she had never known before. This social sun- 
shine developed in her new powers of observation 
and reflection, and gave her courage to express 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 175 

her thoughts and feelings as she had never before 
done. 

Every one invited her to ride, or walk, or drive 
with them ; and instead of playing whist with 
her husband every evening, she was dancing and 
playing round games with the gayest young peo- 
ple. Mr. N and his sisters found plenty of 

elderly persons ready to play whist with them, 
and were so well amused that they cared not what 
Olivia was doing. They little thought that she 
was imbibing ideas and feelings and tastes which 
would make the monotony of her home intoler- 
able, would change her whole character, and revo- 
lutionize her life. 

It was not long before some of her fashionable 
admirers began to hint at her being a neglected 
wife, and to wonder how it was possible for one 
so young and so charming to be treated with so 
much indifference. This shocked her, as an in- 
delicate observation for any one to make to a wife, 
and she resented it accordingly ; but it opened 
her eyes to a painful truth of which she had 
hardly been conscious before, but which now be- 
came more apparent to her every day. 

The striking contrast between her husband's 
behavior to her, both before and after marriage, 
and that lover-like attention she was now receiv- 
ing from the most elegant and fascinating men in 
the hotel, convinced her that she had made a 



176 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

fatal mistake in marrying Mr. N , and that 

there were men in the world who resembled the 
heroes of romance of whom she used to read. 

There was one man of high birth, elegant man- 
ners, and great personal beauty, who exerted all 
his powers of fascination to make the neglected 
wife in love with him ; but she was proof against 
all his seductions. French novels had not then 
corrupted the young mind, nor was the dangerous 
doctrine of affinities then known. She had strict 
notions of a wife's duty to her husband, and acted 
accordingly. She even forced herself to tell Mr. 

N that Captain C made love to her, and 

she thought they had better go home. Instead 
of valuing this confidence, and strengthening her 
virtue by a grateful approval, he only said, " Pooh, 
pooh ! child ; don't fancy that every man who 
pays you a compliment is in love with you. I 
shall not go home till our six weeks are expired." 

Chagrined and provoked at her husband's way 
of receiving what it had cost her such a severe 
struggle to say, she felt inclined to listen with 
more indulgence to the sentimental conversation 
of the gallant Captain. She would not allow him 
to make protestations of love, but she received 
with pleasure the flattering attentions paid her by 
him and several other gentlemen, making no dis- 
tinction between them, and doing her best to con- 
ceal from Captain C the preference she felt 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 177 

for him. Delivered from this great danger by 
her conscientiousness and her native delicacy, she 
was still bent on securing the acquaintance of the 
most agreeable of her fellow-boarders, and when 
she returned to London, she received their calls, 
and, from that time, she had a very different set 
of visitors from those to whom her husband had 
introduced her. Her maiden sisters-in-law soon 
found that she had escaped from their tutelage ; 
and not enjoying her new friends, they made long 
visits to their other brothers. Thus left to her 
own desires, she filled her spare beds with new 
guests, and had frequent small dinner-parties, to 
the surprise of her husband, who always went to 
his counting-room at nine in the morning, and 
never returned until time to dress for a six o'clock 
dinner. He would remonstrate with her on hav- 
ing so much company, but did not absolutely 
forbid it. 

When the London season came round, she 
thought it necessary to her success with her fash- 
ionable friends to give a ball. She knew her 
husband would never consent to it, so she called 
it a party , and kept him entirely in the dark about 
it until the evening arrived, when his astonish- 
ment made him dumb, and the presence of so 
many fine people imposed upon him the necessity 
of treating them civilly. 

They had excellent music and a luxurious sup- 

8* L 



178 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

per, provided and put on table by the celebrated 
Gunter. 

The fashionables from the West End of London 
were surprised to find that the wife of a mer-* 
chant, living in the city, could give such an ele- 
gant ball, and the novelty made it very agreeable 
to them. 

Never having been truly united to her husband, 
her new mode of living made the separation 
wider than ever, and she seemed to regard him 
only as the paymaster of her establishment, and 
the provider of good wines for her guests. He 
was a lover of routine, and when his wife's fre- 
quent dinner-parties and annual ball recurred 
every year, he made no further opposition to 
them. He did, however, become tired of going 
to fashionable watering-places, and she agreed to 
give them up, if he would have a house in the 
country and live there half the year. He accord- 
ingly bought a very nice place, within five miles 
of London, near to her father's residence, and not 
far from the homes of his two married brothers. 
It suited him much better than it did her, to be 
thus planted in the midst of their relations. He 
was very fond of them all, but her tastes and 
feelings separated her from them, and I have 
heard her describe the family dinners that she 
was obliged to partake of once a week, as a real 
martyrdom to her. Her avowed dislike to these 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 179 

reunions gave great offence, and many bitter and 
sarcastic speeches were made about her prefer- 
ence of new and fashionable Mends, to old and 
tried ones. 

Mrs. N was a member of the Episcopal 

Church and a constant attendant upon its servi- 
ces, and she would have been greatly shocked 
had any one told her that she was without relig- 
ion; but certainly the blessed influence of the 
Holy Spirit, promised us by our Divine Master, 
had not yet purified and elevated her mind. She 
was still of the earth, earthy, and her conduct 
at this time was that of a foolish woman of the 
world. She brought a hornet's nest about her 
ears, and suffered much from its stings. 

The next change, for the better, in her mode 
of life, was brought about by the introduction 
into this formal family-circle of a middle-aged 
bachelor, distinguished for his scientific attain- 
ments, his learning, and his artistic tastes. 
Alarmed by the pointed attentions paid him by 
the single ladies in this circle, he naturally took 
refuge with a pretty married woman, whose tastes 
were more like his own, whose house was always 
open to him, to whose pleasant dinners he was 
always invited, and whose carriage was ever at 
his service. 

He was a wise and good man, and saw at once 
that wedlock had brought no happiness to his 



180 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

agreeable hostess, and that she was suffering from 
want of interesting occupation ; so he endeavored 
to interest her in the study of botany, and found 
her a very apt scholar. They walked together in 
search of specimens, and he taught her how to 
examine and classify them, and so great was her 
industry and perseverance that she soon had an 
herbarium which contained all the plants in that 
neighborhood. Her friend next turned her at- 
tention to mineralogy, in which he had an ex- 
tensive and valuable collection. She bought a 
cabinet, and he gave her his duplicate specimens 
to begin with, and introduced her to the auction- 
room, where she could increase her collection. 
He induced her to study enough of geology and 
chemistry to understand the nature and value of 
the minerals she bought, and this pursuit gave 
her great pleasure. None of her relations could 
comprehend this. They thought that she only 
pretended to like her new occupation, in order to 
engross the attention of her learned friend, and 
they were very jealous of her. 

To associate, for the first time, with a highly 
cultivated and scientific man, to be the only one 
in a large circle capable of entering into his pur- 
suits, and to be the chief object of his attentions, 
might well excite her gratitude and esteem, and 
she naturally wished to return some of his favors, 
by putting her house, her carriage, and her time 
at his disposal. 



UNHAPPY MABBIAGES. 181 

A mineralogist always has unsatisfied desires 

for some rare specimen, and Mrs. N would 

spend days in a dirty auction-room, waiting to se- 
cure for her friend some stone that she knew he 
wished to possess, and long evenings were spent 
in talking over the treasures they had collected. 

Things had gone on for two years in the same 

way, when Mrs. N invited to her house a 

young girl, who added to a good education a gen- 
eral culture, a taste for the fine arts, and a love 
for science. She was a very agreeable addition 

to Mrs. N and her friend, — more especially 

the latter, — who was becoming rather tired of his 
perpetual tete a tete with his pupil, and was well 
pleased to come in contact with a fresh and vig- 
orous mind, already well cultivated, and fond of 
some of his favorite pursuits. This guest was 
from the country, and she must be shown the 
sights of London. The scientific man conde- 
scended to be her showman, and most ably did 
he perform his part. He obtained tickets of ad- 
mission to all the finest private collections of pic- 
tures, and gave his companions the benefit of his 
knowledge of the various merits of the ancient 
masters. Whatever sight was to be seen, he made 
it doubly interesting by his learning and his taste. 
All the best theatres were visited in turn, and 
there Mr. N accompanied them, making him- 
self the escort of the young lady, and leaving his 



182 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

wife to "her philosopher," as he used to call 
hira. 

At the end of a few weeks, this trio was broken 
up, and the tete a tete was resumed for another 
year, being carried on as well during the six 
months in the city, as in the country. 

By this time, the " envy, malice, and all un- 
charitableness " of the family circle had reached 
a fearful height, and led to the aspersion of Mrs. 

N 's character. They accused her and her 

friend of too great an intimacy, and even spread 
the slander among their acquaintances, and en- 
deavored thereby to deprive Mrs. N of a sec- 
ond visit from her congenial young friend. She 
was however so thoroughly convinced of the false- 
hood of the charge, that she treated it with silent 
contempt, and paid the expected visit. The re- 
sult of her careful examination of the parties 
was, that perfect delicacy and propriety marked 
their intercourse, that no tender sentiment ex- 
isted on his side, but that on hers she was strug- 
gling to conceal a love that amounted to idolatry. 
This generous young friend determined to do all 
she could to save the reputation and future well- 
being of Mrs. N , even at the expense of some 

present happiness. She sought a private inter- 
view with the philosopher, told him of the slan- 
ders which were in circulation, and besought him 
not to compromise the reputation of his friend 



UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. 183 

by continuing his great intimacy. He replied, 
"You are a brave woman, to dare to speak so 
to me, and I honor you for it. I have wished 
a thousand times to break my chains, but I 
am so bound by innumerable obligations to the 
lady, that it seems like the blackest ingratitude 
to break up the intimacy." — " Your obligations 
to her should make you careful of her good re- 
pute ; better be thought ungrateful than be the 
cause of a real injury." — "You are right; I 
see it all now, as I never did before ; I will cut 
the connection at once." — " Do not be too rash ; 
break off by degrees ; you are going to Scotland 
for several months, do not write to her during 
your absence, and when you return, visit her 
only as a common acquaintance. This advice 
was followed, the lady's reputation was saved, 
and though she suffered for a while, she realized 
the danger she had escaped, and sought occu- 
pation and interest in establishing a boarding- 
school for twelve poor orphans, whom she fed 
and clothed and educated out of her own allow- 
ance for phi-money. 

She survived her husband many years, and be- 
came a great traveller ; but whether she ever 
found her way into the " kingdom of God on 
earth," I do not know, for I lost sight of her 
when I came to this country. 



184 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. — MRS. SOMERVILLE. — 
DR. ROBINSON. — OBSERVATORY AT ARMAGH. 

WHEN travelling in Europe, it is a great 
advantage to belong to some profession, 
or to be devoted to some special object, as that 
introduces you to persons of similar pursuits, 
who feel a pleasure in forwarding your views, 
and pay you attentions accordingly. 

I never was aware of this until I travelled with 
my husband, who was an astronomer and mathe- 
matician, and so well known as such, in England, 
that the Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge 
wrote to him, " Come to Cambridge ; you need 
bring no letters of introduction ; we all know 
you, and we want to see you." 

When Mr. Farrar visited the Royal Observa- 
tory at Greenwich, I was allowed to accompany 
him, and the gentleman who received us, told me 
that I was enjoying a privilege which no duchess 
in the land could command. So much for being 
the wife of an astronomer. 

No spot in England was visited by the Harvard 
Professor with so much interest as that plain 



MRS. SOMERVILLE. 185 

one-story building, on a small but abrupt hill, in 
Greenwich Park. We went all over it just be- 
fore noon, and wished to see the observer take 
the sun's meridian, but that was not allowed, for 
it was a matter of such nice observation, that the 
mere breathing of another person in the room 
might spoil its accuracy. This fact interested 
him. He looked with reverence on a spot which 
had been the fountain of such rich streams of 
science, and was so intimately connected with the 
history of astronomy. 

As soon as that distinguished astronomer, Mrs. 
Somerville, heard that Mr. Farrar was in London, 
she sent him a message by Lucy Aiken, to ask 
him to come and see her, and to say she would 
be at home every morning during the next week, 
till he came, that she might be sure to see him. 
She sent me word that she never made any calls, 
or she would come to see me, but she hoped I 
would accompany my husband. 

We of course obeyed this gratifying summons, 
and went down to Chelsea early in the week. 
Dr. Somerville was governor of the hospital there 
for invalid soldiers, and lived in the building, 
where he had a handsome suite of apartments. 
He met us in the hall, and ushered us into a large 
room, which seemed to be a library and drawing- 
room all in one. There sat the pretty, refined, 
and elegant woman, who had astonished the sci- 



186 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

entific world by her translation and thorough 
comprehension of La Place's grand work on the 
mechanism of the heavens. She received us 
most cordially, and after a few minutes of general 
conversation, Dr. Somerville invited me to the 
other end of the room to look at a cabinet of 
minerals, collected by his wife. While showing 
them, he was continually looking over his shoul- 
der at Mrs. Somerville and Mr. Farrar. At last 
he exclaimed, "Ah! they have got at it now; 
I thought they would, if we left them alone." 
Sure enough, they were talking away on the 
higher branches of mathematics and astronomy. 

Several oil paintings, of Swiss scenery, at- 
tracted my observation, and Dr. Somerville told 
me they were done by his wife, from sketches 
made from nature, and that her favorite recrea- 
tion was a tour in Switzerland. He showed me 
also a collection of botanical specimens gathered 
there. So I discovered that this great mathe- 
matician was also a botanist, mineralogist, and 
artist. 

The two astronomers so eiyoyed talking to- 
gether, that I was obliged, at last, to interrupt 
them and remind my husband that it was time to 
go. Mrs. Somerville would not let us depart 
without naming a day when we would dine with 
her, and meet the Astronomer Royal, Mr. Bailey. 
That done, we drove back to town, delighted 



MRS. SOMERVILLE. 187 

with our visit. Mr. Farrar was full ot admira- 
tion for the extraordinary attainments of Mrs. 
Somerville, and not less charmed by her feminine 
graces and modest unpretending manners. 

Our dinner visit proved equally agreeable. 
We then saw her two grown-up daughters, and 
met the Astronomer Royal. The conversation 
was on common topics ; the dinner was simple — 
not many dishes — but everything of the best; 
and I observed that the footman took his orders 
about the dinner from his master. As the Doc- 
tor was obliged to cater for the hospital, I sup- 
pose he took the care of providing for his own 
table. Mrs. Somerville's exquisite toilette and 
the dressing of her beautiful brown hair showed 
that the most abstruse studies had detracted 
nothing from a proper womanly attention to ap- 
pearances. 

When the ladies retired from the dinner-table, 
we all looked over a box of birds just arrived 
from South America, and admired their brilliant 
plumage. They were prepared for stuffing, with 
the flesh and bones taken out, and the box con- 
tained a great number of them. Leaving the 
young ladies to talk ornithology over them, I 
asked Mrs. Somerville to tell me what first turned 
her attention to mathematics, and she very readi- 
ly gave me the following particulars. 

Her father, Admiral Fairfax, was constantly at 



188 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

sea, in the service of his country, and her mother 
lived in a very retired spot in Scotland, during his 
absence. The only village near them was within 
walking distance, and the family often went there 
to make small purchases, and visit the rooms of 
the dressmaker and milliner, who took a maga- 
zine which contained the fashions. Looking over 
it one day, Mrs. Somerville saw some questions 
given which were to be answered by algebra. 
She did not know what algebra was, but she 
thought she could answer them by an arithmeti- 
cal calculation. This she did very easily, and 
in the next number of the magazine she saw that 
she was right. Her curiosity, however, was ex- 
cited as to what algebra was, and she made in- 
quiries of Dr. Somerville, the father of her pres- 
ent husband. He referred her to the article on 
algebra in the Encyclopaedia, which he possessed, 
and she carried the heavy volume home. She 
soon understood the subject, and was delighted 
with that method of doing sums. Her father 
was with them in Edinburgh the following winter, 
and there she found the aid she needed, and pur- 
sued her studies into the higher branches of 
mathematics, and became so fond of the science, 
that it has since been her most delightful occupa- 
tion. 

When we ordered our carriage to return to 
town Dr. Somerville asked if we could give Mr, 



MRS. SOMERVILLE. 189 

Bailey a seat in it, which we were happy to do. 
The two astronomers talked incessantly all the 
way to London, and I listened in silent amaze- 
ment, at not being able to understand anything 
they said. They seemed to me to be talking in 
hints and half-spoken phrases ; they were so fa- 
miliar with their subject that a word or two was 
sufficient to convey their ideas ; but to me they 
were unintelligible. The effect was very curious 
of having people converse in English, without 
being able to comprehend what they said. 

I was told, by a common friend, that Mrs. 
Somerville was a good Greek and Latin scholar, 
and that she spoke French and Italian well ; but 
she told me herself that she never could learn 
German, and she had tried hard ; for it was the 
favorite language of her daughters, who always 
spoke it to each other. 

I saw Mrs. Somerville but once more, and then 
she did me the favor of calling on me in London, 
and spending an hour. She was then full of 
feeling for a friend in affliction, and talked chief- 
ly of her. Mrs. Somerville was married twice, 
and this gave rise to the mistake which made La 
Place say, that he was astonished to hear that 
there were two Englishwomen who could under- 
stand his Mecanique Celeste. After her second 
marriage she was in Paris, and La Place called 
to see her. He found a lady in her saloon, with 



190 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

whom he talked for some time of the opera and 
the on dits of the day. After a while, he said, he 
had called to see Madame Somerville, and hoped 
she was at home, when to his surprise, he found 
that the pretty woman he was talking with was 
the lady herself. 

We made the acquaintance of another very 
agreeable astronomer, Dr. Robinson of. the Ob- 
servatory at Armagh, to whom Miss B 'geworth 
gave us a letter of introduction, and of whom 
she spoke in such high terms that we altered our 
route on purpose to see him. 

We arrived at the inn at Armagh on a Satur- 
day morning, and despatched our letter to the 
Doctor. He sent word that he would call in the 
morning, and the next day he was with us before 
church time, invited us to sit in his pew, to dine 
with his family at five o'clock, and to look at his 
instruments in the evening. In this first inter- 
view we were willing to believe that all Miss 
Edgeworth had said of him was true. I thought 
him one of the most agreeable men I had ever 
met with. 

We attended cathedral service in a small chapel 
of ease, which was used while the cathedral was 
being restored, and, after the service, Dr. Robin- 
son took us all over the ancient edifice, and talked 
of it with the science of an architect and the 
enthusiasm of an antiquary, showing us how the 



OBSERVATORY AT ARMAGH. 191 

best things in it had been covered up by centuries 
of patching. At that time the Bishop of Armagh 
was Lord John Beresford, a single man with a 
large fortune besides his church benefice, the 
emoluments of which he devoted to public works. 
He had given eight thousand pounds to the re- 
pairs of the cathedral. 

Dr. Robinson took us to the top of the cathe- 
dral tow *, whence we had a fine view of the town 
and the adjacent country. We saw the Primate's 
house and pa?k, the monument erected to employ 
the poor, the court-house, library, and other pub- 
lic buildings. While conversing about the soil 
and population of Ireland, Dr. Robinson told us 
there were four hundred inhabitants to every 
square mile, and said, " With this fertile soil and 
abundant power of labor, this land might be one 
of the most prosperous in the world, were it not 
for bad legislation and Papacy." After much 
pleasant chat, Dr. Robinson left us. A little be- 
fore five o'clock we walked up to the Observatory, 
where, in a neat stone house attached to it, the 
astronomer lived. We were most cordially re- 
ceived by Mrs. Robinson, and partook of a nice 
family dinner with two other guests and two 
young sons of the Doctor. After dinner we were 
shown into the Observatory, and Mr. Farrar was 
much interested in seeing some of Dr. Robinson's 
improvements and contrivances for rendering his 



192 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

means of observation the most perfect in the 
world. The American astronomer had labored 
for years for the establishment of an observatory 
in Cambridge, Mass., and had not relinquished 
the hope, so he looked with peculiar interest at 
the arrangements of the Observatory in Armagh. 
We were both so absorbed in the subject, that 
Mrs. Robinson could hardly get us into the house 
again when tea was ready. 

A cloudy night prevented our seeing the heav- 
enly bodies, but our host amused us with a very 
fine microscope, which was equally good by lamp 
or sunlight. The subjects were well selected 
and beautifully arranged, and Dr. Robinson held 
forth upon them as though his peculiar vocation 
had been natural history instead of astronomy. 
Among numerous other curiosities, we were shown 
the difference of structure between the fibre of 
cotton and flax, — a difference which has settled 
the question of whether cotton was known to the 
ancient Egyptians, and proved all the mummy 
cloth to be linen. Dr. Robinson talked of the 
new discoveries of the polarization of light in a 
way highly gratifying to Mr. Parrar, who had 
paid much attention to the subject. He put a 
thin piece of tourmaline into the microscope, 
making the light pass through it, and showing 
how certain colors were retained while others dis- 
appeared, — strained out, as it were. He showed 



OBSERVATORY AT ARMAGH. 193 

us steel buttons, in which prismatic colors were 
produced by lines cut on them, so fine as to be 
invisible to the naked eye. Many other interest- 
ing objects were presented to us in this fine micro- 
scope, and the evening passed but too quickly 
away. 

Mrs. Eobinson appeared to be the worthy and 
congenial partner of the Doctor. A frank cor- 
diality made us at once feel at ease as her guests. 
Taking care not to interfere with her husband's 
exhibitions, she, too, showed, us many pretty 
things. Among them I remember a beautiful 
little temple, about eighteen inches high, with an 
equestrian statue on the top, and several full- 
length figures standing in it, all made by a young 
lady, in white card-paper. The cornices, volutes, 
carved friezes, and ceilings, were all done by cut- 
tings in card-paper. It was of unsullied white- 
ness, much as it must have been handled in the 
making. We were told that the lady never 
worked on it in a room with a fire, for fear of its 
getting sullied. It was kept under a glass shade. 
We saw a paper clock, too, done in the same 
way. 

It was late before we could put an end to this 
delightful visit, and on returning to our inn, it 
was long before we could subside into rest. The 
next morning we went again to the Observatory, 
by invitation of Dr. Robinson, who wished to 



194 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

show the American Professor more of his fine 
instruments and his peculiar contrivances for 
working with them to the best advantage. I re- 
member only one of these, which was screwing 
on to his telescope, when not in use, a bottle of 
lime, to keep the speculum dry. 



A REMARKABLE WOMAN. 195 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A REMARKABLE WOMAN. 

THERE comes before me now, with great dis- 
tinctness, the image of a very handsome and 
highly gifted woman, whose career was rather re- 
markable. She was about twenty-five years old 
when I became acquainted with her. We were 
both guests of an English gentleman, about to 
emigrate to America with a large family of moth- 
erless children, between the ages of ten and 
twenty. She came highly recommended, by an 
intimate friend of the family, to try whether she 
could make herself acceptable as a companion to 
the elder girls, and useful as a teacher to the 
younger ones. I was there to pass a few weeks 
with my oldest and dearest friends, before losing 
them forever in the backwoods of America, and 

I was to help the father, Mr. K , to decide 

whether Miss D was the right person to ac- 
company his children to the New World. 

She immediately perceived that it was impor- 
tant for her to conciliate my good opinion, and 
she laid herself out to do it most successfully. I 
was charmed by her beauty, and by her varied 



196 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

powers and accomplishments. She had a rich 
and mellow voice, and sang by ear, without any 
accompaniment, and with more expression and 
feeling than any one I ever heard, except Jenny 
Lind. Her recitations, too, were wonderfully 
fine. She would stand up in the middle of the 
room and personate two or three characters in a 
play, and so change her voice that, with your 
eyes shut, you would suppose there were several 
speakers. She read aloud delightfully, and her 
narrating was equally excellent. With all these 
accomplishments she had not neglected the use- 
ful arts. She was a capital seamstress, and de- 
spatched her work with a rapidity that seemed 
like magic. If all women could sew as she did, 
sewing-machines need never to have been in- 
vented. The art of cooking was not less familiar 
to her. She had kept house for several years for 
a bachelor brother, in London, and was quite at 
home in all the details of housekeeping. She 
proved so delightful an addition to this family 
party in their quiet country life, that all were 
desirous that she should accompany them to 
America. We found out by degrees that her 
relations were not aware of her being at Mr. 

K 's, and knew nothing of her intention to 

expatriate herself; so he very properly told her 
he could not take her with him without the con- 
sent of her mother, who was her only surviving 



A REMARKABLE WOMAN. 197 

parent. This gave her great uneasiness, but 
after much hesitation she consented to his hav- 
ing a personal interview with her mother, and 
asking her consent. 

Mr. K was no sooner gone, than Miss 

D became very ill with a high fever, at- 
tended by spasms and delirium. As I was the 
oldest person in the house, and much interested 
in her, I became her nurse, and had the whole 
charge of her night and day. We had to send 
four miles for a physician, and he could only see 
her once in twenty-four hours. A great respon- 
sibility therefore fell on me. Her delirium in- 
termitted, and when she found she had been so 
affected, she seemed much alarmed, and begged 
me to tell her everything she had said, and not 
to let any one but myself be in the room when 
she was again delirious. I promised her I would 
not, and told her she had disclosed no secrets ; 
that she fancied herself travelling in America, 

but not with the K family ; they were always 

in advance of her, and she was trying to get up 
with them. She questioned me closely as to all 
she had said, and seemed satisfied at last that her 
secrets were safe. Sometimes, when delirious, 
she would sing most sweetly, in such subdued 
tones that it sounded as if it were afar off; and 
in the dead of night, when watching alone with 
her, these strains came like heavenly music, and I 



198 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

often thought they would usher her into the land 
of spirits. She had spasms of the muscles so 
violent, that when lying in bed, too weak to make 
any voluntary movement, she would rise directly 
up and throw herself on to the floor, at the foot 
of her bed. At last these spasms attacked her 
heart, and one night the physician remained with 
us, and with his finger on her pulseless wrist, ex- 
pected every hour to be her last. That was the 
crisis of her disease. A warm bath relieved her, 
and she began to recover from that time. When 

Mr. K returned, having obtained the consent 

of her mother to her going to America, that news 
was to her as the elixir of life, and she recovered 
rapidly. 

She had judged wisely in preferring a personal 
interview with her mother to any letter that Mr. 

K could have written, for there was that in 

his looks and manner which inspired confidence 
in all who conversed with him, and he had prom- 
ised that anxious mother to be a father to her 
child, and that, if she continued with him to his 
death, she should have a daughter's portion of 
his property. 

Preparations for quitting England were carried 
on now with great spirit and cheerfulness. I 
could not help wondering at the willingness of 
the whole family to quit their ancestral halls, 
until a conversation with Mr. K explained it. 



A REMARKABLE WOMAN. 199 

He considered England on the eve of revolution. 
It was at the time when the people were clamor- 
ing for a Parliamentary reform, and the riots at 
Manchester and other places, made many fear a 

general uprising. Mr. K was a reformer, 

and was intimate with the radical leaders. He 
knew that in case there was an insurrection, he 
could not help taking a prominent part in it. 
He was old, and wished to avoid a bloody revo- 
lution. He admired a republican form of gov- 
ernment, and desired of all things to live and die 
under it, and to establish his children in the 
United States. He had imbued them with his 
principles, and they all looked eagerly forward 
to being citizens of a free Republic. 

A family with whom Mr. K had long been 

intimate, and whom we will call by the name of 
Lawless, intended to follow him to America, and 
their eldest son was already there, exploring the 
Western States, and fixing on a locality where 
they could make a settlement. Soon after the 

K s landed in New York, he joined them, 

and persuaded them that the prairies of Illinois 
would be their " promised land." Several young 

Englishmen had emigrated with Mr. K , and 

a large cavalcade proceeded westward on horse- 
back. There were no railroads then. 

Though their journey was long and sometimes 
wearisome, they found much to interest them in 



200 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

the natural productions of the country, and the 
manners and customs of the people. It was soon 
obvious to all the party that Mr. Lawless was 

devoted to Miss D , and that they were very 

much in love with each other. When this was 

pointed out to Mr. K , he said it could not be, 

for Mr. Lawless had a wife in England. That 
good old man thought too well of both the parties 
to believe they could do wrong, and great was his 
dismay and grief when Mr. Lawless informed him 
that he intended to marry Miss D , and re- 
main in a certain town through which they had 

passed. Mr. K remonstrated in vain, and 

was told that a suit was instituted against the 
wife in England, which would certainly end in 
divorce, and he only anticipated his freedom in 
marrying now. 

Here, then, was the explanation of Miss D — — 's 
anxiety to come to the United States. She only 

made use of the K s in order to join her 

lover, and this was the secret she was so afraid 
of divulging in her delirium. 

The marriage ceremony was performed, and 
she settled in a Western city, where she soon 
made friends and became the most popular woman 
there. Her domestic virtues claimed their appro- 
bation, and her accomplishments charmed them. 
She never made invidious comparisons between 
the Old World and the New ; she accepted willing- 



A BEMAKKABLE WOMAN. 201 

ly all the novelties and peculiarities of the society 
she was in, and was too happy to find fault with 
anything. At the end of several months, her 
husband was obliged to go to England on busi- 
ness, and during his absence she became a mother. 
Nothing could exceed the kind attentions she re- 
ceived on that occasion. One elderly lady, the 
wife of a distinguished citizen, acted the part of 
mother to her, and she was made much of by all 
her friends. 

While basking in this sunshine of social happi- 
ness, and never dreaming of a change, a rumor 
reached the city that she was not the legal wife 
of Mr. Lawless. She was too marked a character 
not to be much discussed, and at first the rumor 
was discredited ; but at last information was re- 
ceived which left no doubt of its being a case of 
bigamy, and by the time her husband returned 
she had lost all her popularity, was deserted by 
her friends, and was glad to fly with him to the 
West, and lead the life of a pioneer's wife. 



9* 



202 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 

A YOUNG Princess, who is heir to the British 
throne, becomes an object of great interest 
and curiosity to every little girl in the kingdom, 
especially to those who are nearly of her own age ; 
and the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George 
IV., was rendered peculiarly interesting by the 
unhappy circumstances of her childhood. Sep- 
arated from her mother, tyrannized over by her 
father, over-disciplined by her grandmother and 
aunts, she was an object of love and pity to the 
nation. Very different was her bringing up from 
that which her cousin Victoria received from her 
judicious mother, the Duchess of Kent. The 
Princess Charlotte was bequeened from her very 
birth, and never knew what it was to be free from 
the restraints of royalty, while the Princess Vic- 
toria was treated like any nobleman's child, and 
was kept in ignorance of her being heir presump- 
tive to the throne until she was ten years old, 
when she discovered it by looking into an al- 
manac. 

When the Princess Charlotte was four years 



PEINCESS CHARLOTTE. 203 

old, she was allowed to play with a little girl of 
her own age, and they were both to partake of a 
supper of bread and milk. A silver bowl and a 
gold spoon were given to the royal child, whilst 
her little companion had a china bowl and a silver 
spoon. This so displeased the Princess, that she 
threw herself on the floor and kicked and screamed 
for a china bowl and a silver spoon. 

In this way her royal state was always made an 
irksome bondage to her ; and it is not to be won- 
dered at that a high-spirited child should some- 
times prove restive under such senseless restraints. 
The public always sympathized with her, and 
heard with pleasure of her rebellious acts. 

One of these I well remember hearing of at the 
time, and being rebuked for admiring it. Queen 
Charlotte, grandmother to the Princess, took her 
to task for her want of dignity in her manner of 
getting into her carriage. She told her she 
should never forget that she was the future queen 
of England. She promised to do differently next 
time, and so she did. For, refusing to be handed 
in as usual, she desired the attendants to stand 
back, and running violently through the hall, she 
leaped into the carriage at one bound, and, laugh- 
ing merrily, told those near her to let the Queen 
know how dignified she was. 

Besides having ladies in waiting, and govern- 
esses and tutors of all sorts, she had the Bishop 



204 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

of London for her adviser and religious teacher. 
Finding how very passionate she was, he wrote a 
short prayer for her to repeat every time she felt 
her anger rising. So one day when he visited 
her, he was told of her haying been in a great 
passion with the head-governess, and he said that 
he feared she had not repeated the prayer he gave 
her. She replied, " yes, I did. I should have 
struck her if I had not said your prayer." 

As soon as she was old enough to know any- 
thing about the separation of her parents, and 
their detestation of each other, she espoused her 
mother's cause, and was consequently much dis- 
liked by her father. She was removed from her 
mother's house at the age of eight years, and 
only allowed to see her once a week ; but as she 
grew older, and became acquainted with her 
mother's wrongs, she kept up a secret corres- 
pondence with her, in spite of her father's com- 
mands and the watchful eyes around her. He 
suspected that her household favored this inter- 
course, and he determined to put a stop to it. 
In a private interview, he informed his daughter 
that he should change her household, and remove 
her to Cranbourn Lodge, in Windsor Forest. He 
then dismissed her, and told her to send Lady 
to him. 

Shocked and alarmed by these sudden changes, 
dreading to be sent to a secluded spot, twenty 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 205 

miles from London, and fearing she would never 
be allowed to see her mother again, she resolved 
to rush off at once to Connaught House, and have 
at least one interview with her, before she was 
banished to Windsor Forest. Instead of sending 
her governess to her father, she ran down a back 
stair-case into the street, without bonnet or shawl, 
found a hackney-coach, jumped into it, and told 
the coachman to drive to Connaught Place. Ar- 
rived there she found that her mother was at 
Black Heath. She told the coachman to drive 
down to Black Heath. He said it was not possi- 
ble for his horses to go so far. She told him who 
she was, and that he must take her to her mother. 
He was sorry not to oblige her, but his old nags 
would drop down by the way, and then where 
would her Ladyship be. According to the ac- 
count I heard at the time, she then drove to the 
house of the Prime Minister, and, alighting there, 
begged him to order his carriage and send her in 
it to Black Heath. This he dared not do. He 
told her that she must obey her father ; that he, 
as Regent, had absolute power over the persons 
of all the royal family while under age. She 
wished to see her mother's legal adviser, Lord 
Brougham, and he was sent for. Meanwhile 
the Prime Minister had sent a messenger to the 
Regent, to tell him where his daughter was, 
and that she would soon return home. Several 



206 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

important personages gathered round her, and 
many hours were consumed in listening to her 
complaints and endeavoring to reconcile her to 
her inevitable fate. 

This extraordinary flight of the Princess, and 
her so bravely putting aside all the restraints of 
royalty for the sake of a parting interview with 
her mother, so touched all hearts capable of ap- 
preciating her feelings and the force of her char- 
acter, that she became the idol of the people. 

Even the hackney-coach she had used, and the 
old man who had driven her, were made of great 
importance. Thousands of persons were desir- 
ous, for her sake, of riding in that carriage. 
This proof of her popularity was very displeasing 
to the Regent, and he gave orders to have the 
coach destroyed, the horses shot, and the coach- 
man sent away from London. 

When the Prince of Wales became possessed 
of regal power, as Regent, he abandoned all his 
old friends, the Whigs, and allied himself with 
Tories. His daughter, being at a dinner-party at 
Carlton House, heard her father speak contempt- 
uously of the very men whom he had formerly 
recommended to her as her counsellors, and the 
thought that she should never be able to choose 
the best advisers, if her father had been so mis- 
taken in his, made her burst into tears. It was 
this circumstance that Byron so pungently com- 
memorates in the following lines : — 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 207 

" Weep, daughter of a royal line, 
A sire's disgrace, a realm's decay ; 
Too happy, if each tear of thine 
Could wash a father's guilt away." 

When the allied sovereigns were in London, 
after the battle of Waterloo and the capture of 
Paris, the Princess Charlotte appeared at court, 
in all the splendor of her position, as heir to the 
throne, and all, the beauty of youth, with a well- 
developed form, handsome features, and a finely 
shaped head well set on her shoulders. She was 
eighteen years of age, and a desirable marriage 
must be sought for her. The Prince of Orange 
was a suitor, highly favored by the Regent and 
all his family, but he did not please the Princess, 
and the affair was in suspense, when the Duchess 
of Oldenburg, sister of the Emperor of Russia, 
resolved to prevent that alliance. She wanted 
the house of Orange to be connected with Russia, 
by a marriage with a Russian princess, and she 
contrived to have the young Prince made so in- 
intoxicated at a court ball, that when he danced 
with the Princess Charlotte, he completely dis- 
gusted her, and she resolved that night she would 
never marry him. 

That one surrounded as she was by court eti- 
quette and Tory influences, dictated to by a heart- 
less father, and watched over by an unfeeling 
grandmother and aunts, should be able to make 



208 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

a love-match, was very extraordinary, and I can 
only attribute it to a kind Providence, who sent 
her this great blessing to make up for all the bit- 
ter trials of her childhood. It was brought about 
in this way. Prince Leopold came to London 
with the allied sovereigns, and was the bearer of 
a letter to Princess Charlotte, from a friend of 
hers on the Continent, who instructed him to ask 
for a private interview, and deliver the missive 
himself. This he did, and that first interview 
established a sympathy between them which soon 
ripened into love. Before asking the Princess in 
marriage, of her father, he returned to Paris, 
made his proposals from there, and had them ap- 
proved and recommended to the Regent by some 
of the royal personages about him. 

He was soon allowed to return to London, the 
accepted lover of the Princess ; and then began 
that happy life which continued unabated through 
the rest of her short career. To one who had 
never known the endearments of family ties, had 
never poured out her feelings to a mother or 
sister or brother, and was allowed very few inti- 
macies, this heart-union with a true and noble 
character, this tenderest of all affections, this out- 
pouring of the inmost feelings to a sympathizing 
soul, must have had peculiar charms, and made 
her the happiest woman in England. 

The whole nation appeared to rejoice in her 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 209 

happiness. Statesmen of all parties approved of 
the alliance. Persons of all classes exulted in its 
being a love-match ; and she looked forward to 
her marriage as the means of delivering her from 
much of the etiquette and formality of the court, 
which had always been so distasteful to her. 

When they were discussing in Parliament what 
her income should be, and some speeches made 
which rendered it probable that it would be less 
than had been expected, she said, " If they will 
not give us enough to live as Prince and Princess, 
we will live as Mr. and Mrs. Leopold, and I shall 
like that quite as well." 

Princess Charlotte had always wished that she 
had been born the daughter of a nobleman, and 
envied those whom she knew, their free country 
life on their paternal estates. She therefore re- 
solved that her future residence should be far 
enough from London to afford her rural pleasures. 
Accordingly, the handsome estate of Claremont, 
in the parish of Esher, in the beautiful county of 
Surrey, was purchased for her, and met all her 
wishes. The house had been long unoccupied, 
and numerous workmen were employed in making 
it fit for a royal residence. The porter's lodge 
had been rented for a dame's school, and the old 
woman who kept it was greatly troubled at being 
obliged to quit the premises. In answer to the 
Princess's numerous inquiries about all that was 



210 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

going on at Claremont, she was told this, and she 
immediately said, " The poor old soul must not 
be turned out. If she will give up her school 
she may remain and be my porter ess." To all 
the remonstrances of her courtly friends on the 
necessity of having a man for her porter, and the 
want of style in having an old woman to open 
her palace gates, she turned a deaf ear ; and the 
next time she drove down to Claremont she made 
the dame very happy by telling her she might re- 
main in the lodge. A faithful gate-keeper she 
proved, for having received orders to admit no 
visitors without a pass from a gentleman in the 
village who was appointed to give them, she re- 
fused to open the gates for a royal duke, because 
he had no permit. In vain he told her that he 
was uncle to her mistress, and had a right to go 
in. She would not let him pass ; and he humored 
her by sending an outrider for the required ticket, 
and chatting with her the while. On hearing this 
account of her old woman the Princess was de- 
lighted, and exulted in her choice of a female 
porter. 

The marriage took place in Carlton House, and 
was as private as the Princess could make it. She 
went down to Claremont as soon as it was over, 
and, by a secret arrangement of hers and a sud- 
den departure from the palace, she escaped having 
two maids of honor in the same carriage with 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 211 

herself and Prince Leopold. A gentleman who 
saw her, as she passed out of the court before 
Carlton House, told me that she was laughing 
heartily at the success of her plan for being 
tele a tete with her husband on their drive to their 
new home. 

I had friends in Esher with whom I used to 
stay weeks at a time, and there I always heard 
interesting anecdotes of the royal pair at Clare- 
mont, all showing how rationally and happily they 
spent their time. The old dame at the lodge 
furnished one amusing incident. The Prince 
and Princess were fond of long evening walks, 
and having rambled through their own woods till 
they came to a gate which opened on the high 
road, they passed through it and returned through 
the village to their own front gates, and passed 
through the smaller opening for foot-passengers, 
leaving the gate open behind them. The old por- 
teress seeing them pass supposed them to be some 
part of the household, but had no idea of who 
they were ; so she called after them to come back 
and shut the gate. The Princess enjoyed the 
mistake, obeyed the command, and told of it as a' 
good joke. The poor old dame soon heard of it 
and was in great trouble about it. The next day 
the Prince drove his wife down the avenue in a 
curricle with a pair of gay horses. When they 
approached the gateway, out ran Goody and 



212 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

plumped down on her knees in the middle of the 
carriage-way, with uplifted arms imploring pardon. 
The Prince called out, " Get out of the way; you 
frighten the horses." The Princess made him 
stop whilst she received the apologies which the 
poor old woman addressed to " my Lady Princess 
ma'am"; these three titles she always gave her, 
which so amused her royal mistress, that she 
would not allow of her being corrected. 

In one of their long walks the happy pair 
found in a corner of their domain which they 
had not before visited, a nice little cottage inhab- 
ited by the widow of a former gardener on the 
place. They seated themselves in her little kitch- 
en and talked with her without her knowing who 
they were. She said there was a rabbit warren 
near there, and she did long to catch some of 
them, for there was nothing she loved so much as 
a rabbit pie. The Prince told her he would come 
and shoot some rabbits for her ; she begged him 
not to do that, for it would be robbing the grand 
folks up at the big house. The Princess observed 
that the open Bible on the table was very old and 
worn, and the type small and indistinct ; so the 
next evening she drove there in her pony-chair 
and carried her a large new Bible, very clearly 
printed. When she gave it to her, she told her 
to look first at a certain chapter in Genesis, and 
drove off. She had put there a five-pound bank- 
note. 






PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 213 

Prince Leopold often amused himself with 
shooting the game on his estate, and the Prin- 
cess would accompany him and bag the birds and 
carry them herself. He visited the warren and 
shot some rabbits for the good widow. By the 
time he carried them to her she had found out 
who he was, and was much pleased to receive 
them from him. 

Princess Charlotte had a fancy to taste one of 
the poor woman's rabbit pies ; so she asked her 
to come to her house and make one for her. This 
was a very alarming request, and I have heard 
the widow tell how she dreaded going to the great 
house ; what fear she had of all the fine servants 
there, and how, though they were very civil to 
her, she knew they were laughing at her homely 
ways. She said she was so " flustered " she hard- 
ly knew what she was about, but she managed to 
make the pie, and her Royal Highness said it was 
very good. 

I was one of many strangers who visited this 
widow, after the death of Princess Charlotte, on 
purpose to hear these anecdotes. They show 
forth the goodness of her heart, and account 
for the ardent love with which she inspired all 
around her. 

The Princess Charlotte was naturally high- 
tempered, passionate, and wilful, and it had al- 
ways cost her a great deal of self-discipline to 



214 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

submit to the authority exercised over her, by so 
many people as helped to govern her ; but when 
she came under the dominion of love, she found 
it easy to yield to the will of one whose interests 
were identified with her own, and whose charac- 
ter commanded her esteem and reverence. All 
who know her disposition were surprised to see 
her so docile and amiable towards her husband, 
and only one instance is remembered of her ever 
resenting his control, and that was an ebullition 
of temper that passed away very quickly, and 
never was repeated. It happened thus. 

A greenhouse was to be built near the house, 
and several plans were submitted to the inspec- 
tion of the Princess. She chose one that cost far 
more than either of the others. The Prince ad- 
vised her to have a less expensive one, saying, he 
could build that now, without exceeding his in- 
come, but if she chose to have the more costly 
one, they must wait till another year for it, as he 
was resolved to live within his income. This af- 
fronted the Princess, and she declared that if she 
could not have the one she liked, she would have 
none. This was just before dinner, and she was 
evidently out of humor during the meal. At last 
she sent her plate to the Prince, saying, " I will 
take some of your dish, if you can afford it." 
He was shocked, but said nothing. It was his 
custom, when the ladies left the table, to hand the 






PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 215 

Princess into the drawing-room, and converse with 
her a few minutes before returning to the dining- 
room; this day, he handed her out in silence, 
made a low bow, and left her immediately. She 
burst into tears, and retired to her most private 
apartment. 

When the gentlemen came into the drawing- 
room, the Prince observed her absence, and went 
directly in search of her. At the end of half an 
hour, they reappeared on excellent terms with 
each other, and the less expensive greenhouse 
was built that year. 

One of the Princess's funny speeches came to 
me very direct. She said, the Prince had cured 
her of two antipathies, one was to a boiled leg of 
pork, and the other was to her grandmother. 

I cannot think the cure was very perfect, for 
when the Queen sent her a beautiful lace baby- 
cap, she put it on the end of a poker, and thrust 
it into the middle of a coal fire. When the 
Queen offered to be with her at the time of her 
confinement, her presence was absolutely re- 
fused. To conceal the mortifying fact, the Queen 
was immediately ordered by her physician to 
drink the Bath waters, and away she went to that 
city, which was a hundred miles from London, 
and there she remained till after the death of the 
Princess. 

Very pleasant is it to me to recall all I have 



216 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

known of the life of this beloved Princess, but to 
tell of her confinement and death is a painful 
task, believing, as I do, that she was sacrificed to 
the vanity of her accoucheur and the ignorance 
of the ladies around her. Had she been a peas- 
ant's wife, she would in all probability have lived 
to, be a happy mother. 

It had always been customary for two accou- 
cheurs to share the responsibility of a royal birth, 
but the vanity and ambition of Sir Richard 
Croft, made him request to be the only one em- 
ployed, and when it proved a very protracted la- 
bor, he was so weighed down by the responsibili- 
ty he had assumed, as to be wholly unequal to 
the exigencies of the case. No one thought of 
sustaining the Princess's strength either by food 
or stimulants, and soon after she was delivered 
of a still-born child, she sank away into the arms 
of death. 

Her previous good health and fine spirits, had 
prevented any one from feeling any apprehen- 
sions of the approaching crisis, and the news of 
her death came like a thunder-clap upon the na- 
tion. One wail of sorrow went through the land. 
Never was a royal personage more universally re- 
gretted, or more deeply lamented. No need of 
orders for a general mourning ; the poorest la- 
borer wore some badge of it, and in all public 
assemblages nothing but black was seen. It was 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 217 

put on, too, on hearing of her death, instead of 
waiting till she was buried. 

The afflicted husband tried to escape from the 
forms of court etiquette, and all the heartless 
ceremonials which belonged to the occasion, by 
shutting himself up in her favorite sitting-room, 
where they had passed together their last happy 
hours, and when obliged to quit it, he locked the 
door and kept the key, lest something of hers 
should be moved. Her hat and cloak were on a 
fire-screen, just where she had thrown them on 
returning from her last walk, and when I visited 
the house, twelve months after her death, that 
room was still shut up, and nothing in it had 
been removed. 

She was, according to custom, buried at mid- 
night, by torchlight, and I well remember sitting 
up in my bed to listen to the tolling of the parish 
bell, on that night, when all the other church- 
bells throughout the United Kingdom were send- 
ing forth the same solemn tones. She was buried 
in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and the coffin 
was let down slowly through the floor into a vault 
underneath. Prince Leopold, as chief mourner, 
was seated at the head of the coffin, and was so 
absorbed in grief, that he did not perceive that 
they were lowering the coffin, until he raised his 
head and found it gone. A brother of mine was 
watching him at the time, and said the start he 
10 



218 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

gave, and the gesture of abandonment to sorrow, 
were most expressive and touching. 

That same brother set on foot a subscription 
for a national monument to the memory of the 
Princess. No one was allowed to give more than 
a guinea, so as to make it the people's doing, and 
the result of that contribution is the grand mon- 
ument to her memory in St. George's Chapel. 



HANNAH MORE'S CONVERT. 219 



CHAPTER XXV. 

HANNAH MORE'S CONVERT. 

WHEN I was a young girl, I was con- 
stantly hearing the praises of Miss Han- 
nah More. Everybody had read, or was reading, 
her religious novel of " Coelebs in Search of a 
Wife," and I used to listen with interest to the 
accounts given of her great popularity among 
the wits who flourished at the close of the last 
century and the beginning of this. I heard, with 
wonder, of her being the intimate friend of the 
great actor, Garrick, the favorite companion, the 
petted darling, of the great moralist, Dr. John- 
son, and an honored member of a select literary 
club, jocosely called le has bleu* She was also 
the author of a tragedy called " Percy," which 
had a great success in London, and once had the 
pleasure of seeing Mrs. Siddons perform in it, 
whilst Garrick sat beside her, delighted both with 
the play and its author. 

Miss More made one of a circle of highly cul- 
tivated, refined, and amiable persons who knew 

* From the color of the stockings of Admiral Boscawen, who 
was one of its members. 



220 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

how to enjoy each others' society in the best man- 
ner, and her letters from London to her sisters in 
Bristol, give a charming account of her easy in- 
tercourse with the highest nobility, the greatest 
statesmen, the most gifted artists, the best writers, 
in prose and verse, of both sexes, with many de- 
lightful persons of fine conversational powers 
and perfect hostesses, who knew exactly whom to 
bring together, and how to make the most of 
their guests' talents and graces. It seemed to 
me afterwards, on reading the Life of Miss More, 
by Roberts, that there never was before, and 
never has been since, such a brilliant society as 
that in which she moved as one of its greatest 
ornaments, loved and caressed by all. Besides 
this circle of beaux esprits, who were her inti- 
mate friends, she was occasionally drawn into the 
vortex of fashionable life, and unwillingly made 
one in the crowded assemblies of the great. The 
follies and vices of the gay world could not es- 
cape her observation, and she had the moral 
courage to attack them in a little work entitled 
" Thoughts on the Manners of the Great." 

At the time when I first heard of Hannah 
More, she had retired from that brilliant society 
which she had so long enjoyed, and was devoting 
her time and talents to the improvement of the 
world in Christian morals. The extensive circu- 
lation of Coelebs prepared the public to receive 



HANNAH MORE'S CONVERT. 221 

with favor her succeeding works, " Practical 
Piety," and " Christian Morals," in which she 
employs all the fascination of her style to recom- 
mend to the rising generation the strictest life of 
self-denial, and the carrying of religion into all 
the details of daily conduct. Vast numbers of 
young people profited by her lessons, and even 
those who thought her ethics too severe, were 
nevertheless made better by them. I will men- 
tion a signal instance of this in one whom I knew 
intimately in her mature years, and from whom 
I learned the facts. 

Caroline Ford was the only child of a rich 
"West Indian planter, and came with her parents 
to England at the age of sixteen. She was placed 
for two years at a fashionable boarding-school, 
near London, and then carried to Bath, during 
the season of gayety there, and brought out at 
a Master of Ceremonies' ball. The handsome 
heiress soon became the reigning belle of the 
season. Numerous lovers followed her steps, 
and the offers of marriage made to her and her 
father were so frequent, that to be refused by 
Miss Ford became a joke among her beaux, and 
every one of her admirers was expected to try 
his fate. Satisfied and happy in her brilliant de- 
but, surrounded by novel pleasures, and full of 
engagements, her acquaintance with each of her 
lovers was too slight to make any impression on 



222 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

her heart, and she was firmly resolved never to 
marry without being in love. 

When the Bath season was over, Mr. Ford's 
family returned to London, where they had 
formed a large circle of acquaintances, and an- 
ticipated another brilliant career for their daugh- 
ter ; but it was ordered otherwise. She had en- 
joyed the sunshine of prosperity, and was now to 
be tried by adversity. The appalling news came 
that the agent, in whose hands Mr. Ford had left 
all his property in Jamaica, had absconded, taking 
with him all that he could appropriate. The 
plantation remained, of course, and the owner 
found it necessary to return immediately to it. 
Mrs. Ford readily decided to accompany her hus- 
band, but she could not bear to deprive her 
daughter of the chance of making a suitable 
match in England. So it was arranged that she 
should be placed, as a parlor boarder, at the same 
school where she had been a pupil, and the lady 
at the head of the establishment promised to be 
a mother to her. She was to accept the invita- 
tions of her mother's friends, and to be as much 
in society as possible. She was provided with a 
lady's maid, to wait upon her, make her dresses 
and take care of her wardrobe; and this maid 
was also to accompany her mistress wherever she 
went in a hired carriage. She was at first so 
much depressed by the absence of her parents 



HANNAH MOEE'S CONVERT. 223 

and the entire change in all her surroundings, 
that she could not avail herself of the kindness of 
the friends who invited her to their houses. She 
had the company of three young ladies, who were 
parlor-boarders like herself, and they agreed to 
begin a course of reading together, which should 
be really useful to their minds. While they were 
doubting whether to take history or biography, 
Shakespeare or Milton, one of them proposed 
reading a new book just presented to her. It was 
Hannah More's " Practical Piety." The peru- 
sal of it produced such an effect on the mind of 
Caroline Ford that she resolved to follow her par- 
ents to Jamaica, and give up the life of ease and 
gayety which they had provided for her. She felt 
it to be her duty to share their adversity rather 
than increase it by her expensive mode of life. 
The lady of the house admired her self-denial, 
but doubted whether her parents would approve 
of it. Finding her young friend resolved on act- 
ing up to her own sense of duty, she agreed to 
let her use for her outfit the next remittance sent 
to pay for her board. The lady's maid was now 
employed in making up calico dresses and such 
plain garments as would be useful and suitable 
for plantation life. 

In order to avoid the opposition to her depart- 
ure which she knew that the friends of her par- 
ents would make, she kept her intentions a pro- 



224 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

found secret, engaged her passage in the same 
packet which had brought her over from Jamaica, 
and when all was ready, made the journey to 
Southampton alone. Her funds were just enough 
to carry her there, but not sufficient to pay her 
passage. As the captain knew her father, she 
felt sure that he would not insist on being pre- 
paid. She was not disappointed. One of the 
best berths was reserved for her ; but she did not 
relish the behavior of the captain. He was alto- 
gether too free and patronizing, — making her 
feel that she was under an obligation to him. 

Her motherly friend was in daily expectation 
of another remittance from Mr. Ford, and prom- 
ised to forward it to her if it arrived before the 
packet sailed. All the passengers were on board 
and assembled in the cabin when it arrived. She 
showed the draft to the captain, and told him she 
should not pay him with it, as she owed it to a 
friend, who had never taken any advantage of her 
want of money, but freely lent her all she had 
needed. This hint was sufficient. It procured 
for her the respectful treatment she required. 
Her fellow-passengers were the Governor of Ja- 
maica, with his family and suite. She was cor- 
dially received into their circle, treated as one of 
the daughters, and on arriving was carried to the 
Governor's house, and made quite at home there. 

A letter from Caroline now gave her parents 



HANNAH MORE'S CONVERT. 225 

the surprising news that she was near them. 
On hearing that she was at the Governor's, her 
mother advised her not to hurry home, but to 
prolong her stay, where she was in the best socie- 
ty, and might find a good match among the offi- 
cers whom she would meet there. This was a 
sad damper to the filial feelings which had made 
her ask for an immediate conveyance home, and 
her mind was not attuned to the gay scene around 
her. She was much admired and caressed ; the 
officers of the Governor's staff were devoted to 
her; every visitor, but one, distinguished her^ 
and that one was the surgeon-general of the 
forces, — a handsome man, with good manners, 
but so silent and reserved as to be little known 
or liked. To be wholly neglected by any gentle- 
man within reach of her fascination, was such a 
novelty to our heroine, that it drew her attention 
to Dr. Bury, and the exchange of a few words 
with him made her wish for more. At last he 
said to her, " I see you are not happy here ; you 
wish to go home ; and I will drive you there on 
any day you will name." If he had been her 
good genius, he could not have offered her a 
more precious boon. She gratefully accepted his 
kind offer, and, bidding adieu to her hospitable 
friends, she entered the well-appointed curricle 
of the silent bachelor, and a delightful drive of 
six hours took her to her father's plantation. 
10* o 



226 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY^ YEARS. 

She and her handsome escort were of course 
well received. He was invited to stay then, 
and, on leaving the next day, to repeat his visit 
soon. He did not need urging on this point ; he 
became a frequent visitor, and proved a welcome 
variety in the monotonous life of a plantation. 
In due time the offer of his hand and heart to 
the lovely recluse was joyfully accepted by the 
parents, and carefully considered by her. She 
preferred him to all other men, was much at- 
tached to him, but she feared he would not be as 
happy married to a woman without fortune, as 
he was as a bachelor. He had an income, be- 
sides his pay, but he lived luxuriously, and spent 
it all. If he married her, he must provide for 
new expenses, and deny himself his old indul- 
gences. How would he bear that ? She told him 
frankly all her doubts and fears. These he com- 
bated, as a lover would, and succeeded in con- 
vincing her that his happiness would be greatly 
augmented by marrying her. She accepted from 
her mother a substantial, but very plain outfit ; 
and she told me that the very fine ladies of King- 
ston were much shocked by her appearing as a 
bride in a plain straw bonnet, with white ribbons. 
Colonial ladies are so afraid of not keeping up 
with the fashions of the parent country, that they 
are apt to go to extremes, and they were aston- 
ished to see one so lately from England in such 



HANNAH MORE'S '.CONVERT. 227 

simple attire. She so arranged her mode of liv- 
ing that her husband's income proved sufficient 
for them, without his being aware of any sacri- 
fice of personal indulgence. Her talent for 
thrifty management increased as fast as her fam- 
ily enlarged, so that with th^ee young children, 
she spent no more than when first married. Be- 
fore the fourth child was born, Dr. Bury had sold 
his commission, taken his family to England, and 
established himself in Bath as a practising phy- 
sician. It was there that I first knew them. 
She was still very handsome, and was performing 
her duties as a wife and mother in a most exem- 
plary manner. 

There was at that time an excellent opening 
for Dr. Bury to become a successful practitioner 
in Bath. The most fashionable physician had 
run wild on the subject of natural philosophy, 
denying the existence of caloric and advocating 
many absurdities. Another doctor had imposed 
upon the public by attributing every disease that 
came under his notice to the morbid contraction 
of one small muscle in the body, and had out- 
raged common sense by his treatment of it. 
Nothing is too absurd for the credulity of inva- 
lids, and for a while he carried all before him, 
but his full-blown fame had just collapsed; his 
patients were ashamed of having been under his 
care, and were all ready to welcome a new phy- 



228 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

sician with such antecedents as Dr. Bury. Un- 
happily this favorable juncture was lost on the 
military man, who had been so long in a tropical 
climate that his energies were all gone ; he could 
not screw himself up to the exertion and indus- 
try necessary for success as a family physician, 
and his practice dwindled instead of increasing. 
His wife's father died before he had retrieved his 
fortune, and all the trials and burdens of a large 
family and a small income fell on Mrs. Bury. 
She bore them bravely, and often surprised me 
by the indulgence she showed for her husband's 
inefficiency. 

When she had five boys to educate, she per- 
suaded the Doctor to remove to the ancient town 
of Bedford, celebrated for its free grammar- 
school, founded and endowed in 1556, with eight 
exhibitions of eighty pounds a year each, to the 
universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin. 
Her sons did not take naturally to books, and the 
antiquated mode of instruction then in use at 
that grammar-school was not calculated to rouse 
their dormant faculties. They only learnt there 
what was never of the least use to them in after 
life, and they were left in ignorance of all useful 
knowledge. In talking with one of those boys, 
a lad of sixteen years old, I found that he did not 
know whether the sun rose in the east or in the 
west ; but he could construe Latin. 



HANNAH MORE'S CONVERT. 229 

Too indolent to make money, and too honora- 
ble to run in debt, Dr. Bury, after a long strug- 
gle with poverty, made up his mind to emigrate 
to Canada, and avail himself, for the sake of his 
sons, of the inducements to settle there held out 
by his government to men in his situation. I 
was in England when he came to this decision, 
and he and his two oldest boys took passage in 
the same packet in which my husband and I 
sailed for New York. We were both painfully* 
impressed with the extreme unfitness of the trio 
for the life they were about to enter upon. Nei- 
ther of them had read about Canada, or studied 
its geography to any purpose. They did not 
know the difference between Upper and Lower 
Canada, nor why they were so called, and I la- 
bored in vain to interest them in learning more 
about it. Dr. Bury was to make a settlement 
and have a house built, and then his wife was to 
follow with all the other children. Land was as- 
signed to him, and he was about to improve it, 
when he was suddenly carried off by cholera. 
As soon as the news reached his wife, she re- 
solved, though it was winter, to go directly to 
Canada, taking with her her eldest daughter and 
two other children, leaving the rest to follow in 
the spring, with a faithful nurse in her employ. 
She was impressed with the importance of join- 
ing her two sons in Canada, left, as they were, to 



230 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

their own guidance on losing their father ; and 
when asked how she could leave her baby, she 
said, "My baby can do no wrong; my boys may." 
Her timely arrival prevented the land from be- 
coming the exclusive property of the oldest son. 
The legal papers which were to convey the land 
to Dr. Bury, had not been completed, and an of- 
ficial, who was friendly to the Doctor, kept them 
unfinished until some one should appear on be- 
half of the widow and the rest of the family. 

Here we see in the mature woman the same 
characteristics which marked her girlhood; the 
same resolute devotion to duty, the same uncom- 
promising conscientiousness ; and those, with 
many other Christian graces, were first called 
forth and fostered by the religious works of that 
highly gifted and truly devoted woman, Hannah 
More. 



A CONVERTED JEW. 231 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

A CONVERTED JEW. 

A CONVERTED Jew is, to me, a very inter- 
esting person, especially if his conversion 
to Christianity does not consist in the belief of 
certain dogmas peculiar to some sect of Christians, 
but rather in his acceptance of the Jesus Christ 
of the Gospels as the Messiah so long expected by 
the Jews. Erasmus Simon, a learned Jew from 
Poland, was thus converted. He became a Chris- 
tian as the Jews of old did, without belonging to 
any particular sect. His father was a learned 
rabbi, with a family of sons, who, according to 
the custom of his people, were each apprenticed 
to a trade, and, when that was learned, they were 
allowed to prosecute any studies for which they 
had a strong inclination. Erasmus learned watch- 
making, and then went to Edinburgh to attend 
law lectures. There, to the horror and disgust 
of his family, he became a Christian. He knew 
that it would separate him from his brethren, but 
he would not resist his own convictions ; and they 
were so strong that he entertained hopes of con- 
verting his family, if he could gain a hearing ; 



,232 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

but that he could not do. His father forbade 
him his house. He did, however, return to his 
neighborhood, and, on conversing with his Jewish 
brethren, he found several who believed in Christ, 
but were deterred from confessing him before 
men by the double persecution that would follow. 
For unless they joined the Romish Church, both 
Jews and Papists would be their enemies. This 
state of things determined Erasmus Simon to seek 
a safe asylum for Jews, converted or unconvert- 
ed, offered by the United States. 

He married in Edinburgh a most excellent 
woman, one who had always taken a peculiar 
interest in the Jews, and was a true helpmate to 
him in his benevolent project. She was a worthy 
daughter of her mother, who made a voyage to 
the East Indies in order to persuade the Bishop 
of Calcutta to interfere with and put an end to 
the burning of widows in his diocese. 

Erasmus Simon was indeed an Israelite with- 
out guile, and so upright and honest himself that 
he never suspected evil in others. In making 
arrangements to come to this country, he was 
shamefully imposed upon. He took passage in a 
Dutch merchantman, without any decent accom- 
modations for passengers, had a long voyage, and 
he and his wife were half starved on bad pro- 
visions. Arrived in New York, they presented 
their letters of introduction, were kindly received, 



A CONVERTED JEW. 233 

and encouraged in their design of forming a set- 
tlement for converted Jews. They found a society 
already established there for the purpose of con- 
verting the Israelites, and were advised to act 
under its auspices. 

It was proposed that Mr. Simon should make 
an extensive tour in the Northern States, call 
meetings, and set forth the sad condition of those 
Jews in Poland who were ready to embrace Chris- 
tianity, but dared not do it there. He was to 
unfold to his hearers his anti-sectarian views, and 
his plan of buying land and forming a self-sup- 
porting settlement on it for converted Jews, and 
contributions were to be taken up for this purpose. 

It was while he was on this tour that I became 
acquainted with him and his wife, at New Bed- 
ford, where they spent a week at my grandfather's 
house, and proved very interesting guests. The 
simple faith of this Israelite was much approved 
by the Quakers there, and they contributed liber- 
ally to his scheme. He remitted the money he 
collected to the Society for the Conversion of 
Jews, in New York, for safe keeping ; and when 
he had raised a sufficient sum, he was proceeding 
to buy land, and was expecting to organize a col- 
ony of Jews on the basis he had proposed ; but 
this was not to be. The Society who held the 
money was resolved that the converted Jews from 
Poland should accept their creed, and be gov- 
erned by rules of their making. 



234 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

It was not in the nature of Erasmus Simon to 
contend for his rights. Chagrined and disap- 
pointed, he gave up his cherished scheme, and 
left the Society to do as they pleased with the 
funds he had raised. 

He had now become much interested in the 
Indians of North America, and a pamphlet, writ- 
ten by Elias Boudinot, called " The Star in the 
West," had convinced him that they were the lost 
ten tribes of Israel, and he resolved to go among 
them and see if he could find anything Jewish in 
their traditions and customs. He and his wife 
took up their residence on the outskirts of civili- 
zation and in the midst of Indians. He preached 
the Gospel to them, and she fed and clothed six 
Indian boys and taught them to read the Bible. 

Some of the natives around them had become 
farmers, and raised corn and vegetables. One of 
these was known to Mrs. Simon, and she found 
him a very interesting character. She was there- 
fore shocked to hear that a company of strolling 
players had enlisted him in their number, to act 
an Indian part at a town twelve miles off. Mr. 
Simon was not at home, but his energetic wife 
drove off to that town, found her man, per- 
suaded him that it was a degradation to act with 
those players, and asked what he was to receive 
for doing it. He said a suit of clothes at the end 
of the season. She told him that if he would 



A CONVERTED JEW. 235 

return with her, and promise never to turn actor, 
she would give him a suit of clothes that evening. 
He did so, and she gave him her husband's 
clothes, at which the poor Indian was delighted ; 
and, rubbing his hand all over his heart, he said, 
" All here tank you, missus." 

After a few years thus spent, urgent business 
recalled them to England ; and in London Mr. 
Simon hired a room, in which he used to preach 
to the Jews. Several were converted, and he 
made their being willing to learn and practice 
shoemaking a test of their sincerity. Both of 
these excellent and devoted Christians were will- 
ing to live in the humblest way, and eat the 
plainest food, in order to have the means of help- 
ing their Israelitish brethren. 



236 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXYII. 

EDINBURGH. 

AMONG- my pleasant recollections of a short 
visit to Edinburgh with my husband, is the 
making the acquaintance of Mr. Combe, the 
phrenologist, and his handsome wife. They re- 
sponded most kindly to our letter of introduction, 
gave us a dinner, and invited several artists to 
meet us. 

As we were strangers to the whole party, con- 
versation did not flow readily on our first sitting 
down to table. After a pause, Mrs. Combe said 
to me, " Have the Americans forgiven my imper- 
tinent cousin for her book on their country ? " 
I suppose that I looked puzzled, for she added, 
" Fanny Kemble is my cousin." I replied that 
she had made her peace by marrying an Ameri- 
can, and was very popular as Mrs. Butler ; and 
asked if she were Mrs. Combe's cousin on the 
Kemble side. On this she drew herself up, and 
looking at a picture, over the fireplace, of Mrs. 
Siddons, as Queen Catherine, she said, in a tragic 
tone worthy of her descent, " Mistress Siddons is 
my mother." Her manner made me feel as if it 



EDINBURGH. 237 

were a sin not to have known that fact, and I was 
silenced for awhile. But soon a gentleman drew 
out Mr. Combe on his favorite subject, and he 
entertained us with anecdotes of Spurzheim and 
Sir Walter Scott, and told of the growth of heads 
after maturity. An allusion was made to an at- 
tack on him in a review, on which he said, " The 
reviewers have been firing away at me for twenty 
years, and I mind them now no more than the 
Castle rock does the wind." Some one observed 
that his books had a wider circulation than any 
review, and that was answer enough. 

When the ladies retired, we found Dr. Andrew 
Combe, author of " Principles of Physiology," in 
the drawing-room, and I had an interesting con- 
versation with him. Mrs. Combe showed me a 
bust of Charles Kemjble, modelled by her mother, 
and said the art of modelling had been a valuably 
occupation to Mrs. Siddons after she retired from 
the stage. Mrs. Combe regretted that an early 
promise of her mother had obliged her to give to 
Mr. Campbell the materials for her mother's 
biography, adding, " He was not the right man 
to do it." A fine picture of Mrs. Siddons, as 
Zaire, was in the drawing-room, and the resem- 
blance of the daughter to the mother was very 
strong, — the same commanding appearance, the 
same carriage of the head. Mrs. Combe told me 
that she and her husband were not in society iu 



238 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Edinburgh, for, what with party-spirit in politics 
and religion, and the odium thrown on phrenol- 
ogy, they were almost proscribed people, being 
obnoxious on every account to those who ruled 
the world of fashion. From the elegance of their 
establishment, either she or her husband must 
have had a good fortune, and this, with her per- 
sonal charms and accomplishments, might have 
induced even fashionables to visit her. 

We met a party of .very pleasant people at the 
house of Mr. Murray, the Lord Advocate, and 
among them Captain Basil Hall, the traducer of 
the Americans. I was pleased to observe that his 
manners were as rude and eccentric in his own 
country as they had been in the United States. 
He said to Mr. Farrar that he was in a very bad 
humor when he visited America, and did not do 
justice to the country. A poor excuse, but a 
proof that he considered an apology necessary. 
He told us that Dr. Chalmers was to preach at a 
certain church the next day, and that we must go 
and hear him. He gave us minute directions 
how to get good seats, and urged it upon us that 
we must go very early. We followed his instruc- 
tions, and were well placed in a very crowded 
church, where many were obliged to stand through 
the whole service. After waiting nearly an hour, 
we saw the reverend gentleman walk quickly up 
the pulpit stairs between two rows of ladies seat- 



EDINBURGH. 239 

ed on them. He was of middle stature, square 
built, with light florid complexion and hair partly 
gray, about sixty years of age. His appearance 
was prepossessing, and I expected to be much 
pleased. My chagrin was therefore great when 
he read the hymn and I found it impossible to un- 
derstand him. His voice was almost inaudible 
from hoarseness, his articulation indistinct from 
loss of teeth, and a broad Fifeshire accent made 
his language seem like a foreign tongue. The 
singing of that hymn was delightful. Of the 
prayer I understood a little, and it was unlike any 
that I ever before heard. By the time he came 
to the sermon the power of his voice increased, 
and I was able to understand most of it. The 
object of the discourse was to raise funds to de- 
fray part of the expense of building a new church 
in the old town, that the seats might be let at low 
rates to poor families. He treated it as if he 
were recommending a home mission among the 
poor. He insisted very much on the need there 
was of carrying the Gospel to the poor, and not 
waiting for them to come and seek it ; on the 
thankful and courteous manner in which the poor 
always received such messengers ; and set forth 
the witness in every man's breast as ready to re- 
spond to the witness in the Bible, just as the two 
parts of a broken cleft correspond to each other. 
There were many forcible thoughts in the dis- 



240 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAES. 

course 5 but these were reiterated so often as to 
become tedious. I did not like the general tone 
of feeling in which he spoke of " the common 
people," and described the " moral picturesque " 
of religion in a poor man's house. It was Tory 
condescension, not the equality of Christianity. 
His efforts to be emphatic were so violent as to be 
distressing to witness, and the effect was that of 
a picture without any shadow, for he was equally 
emphatic in every part. He rolled about in his 
pulpit, and threw himself over the side of it, in 
a way that was very distasteful to me. The whole 
performance of an hour and a quarter long was 
tedious to me ; but as that large audience was 
very quiet and attentive, I suppose it was inter- 
esting to them. When I compared this sermon 
with the last I heard in New England, I was sat- 
isfied that Dr. Channing was a far greater preacher 
than Dr. Chalmers. 



SALT MINES. 241 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SALT MINES. 

TRAVELLING- is one of the few pleasures 
of this world that does not perish in the 
using. Southey said, " It is more delightful to 
have travelled than to travel," and I think he is 
right. The most prosperous journeys have their 
anxieties and disappointments, and sight-seeing 
is so fatiguing as sometimes to destroy all enjoy- 
ment ; but in retrospect, all that was unpleasant 
is forgotten, and we only live over the most de- 
lightful part of our experiences. Among many 
agreeable recollections of a journey in the Tyrol, 
nothing is more prominent than a visit to the salt 
mines of Hallein, a few miles from Saltzburg. 
These mines run through a mountain which you 
ascend in a very light carriage, holding only two 
persons, and drawn by a pair of powerful horses 
up the steepest path I ever travelled on wheels. 
As we ascended, the view behind us became very 
grand, but I hardly dared to look at it lest the 
turning of my head round should drag the car- 
riage back or tip the horses over upon us, so 
nearly perpendicular was the road. We stopped 
11 p 



242 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

suddenly at a small house, and to our surprise 
we found ourselves at the entrance to the mines. 
Our party consisted of two American ladies, a 
young Englishman, my husband and myself. 
Our lackey had preceded us, to order the neces- 
sary preparations, and when he met us I hardly 
knew him, so much was he disguised by the 
white linen suit he had put on over his own 
clothes. He handed us over to a woman in wait- 
ing, who showed us into a little room, where we 
saw three suits of white linen jackets and trou- 
sers. We supposed that they were for the gen- 
tlemen, and asked for the coverings that ladies 
wear. What was our astonishment when she 
showed us by intelligible signs that this was to 
be our disguise ! We protested in vain against 
the trousers. The Emperor had given strict or- 
ders that no one should enter the mine without 
them. The Empress herself had worn them, and 
so had the Princesses. This authority was indis- 
putable ; so we submitted, but not before one 
lady proposed giving up the sight rather than 
wear the trousers. This could not now be done. 
The carriages that had brought us up the moun- 
tain had returned,- and our own vehicle had gone 
round to the other side to take us up when we 
emerged. Mrs. G sat down first, and suf- 
fered the woman to put her feet into the large, 
coarse trousers and tuck into them her travelling 



SALT MINES. 243 

dress and all her petticoats. These encumbran- 
ces so increased her naturally rotund appearance, 
that she looked like the caricature of a little 

Dutchman, and Miss A and I laughed so 

immoderately that we could not begin our toilets. 
At last, however, we bethought ourselves that 
time was precious, and began the operation. A 
long white jacket and a short leather apron, put 
on behind, with a cloth cap stuck on the top of 
the head, over the bonnet cap, completed our 
grotesque appearance. When dressed we could 
not stop laughing at each other and at ourselves. 
Miss A thought she never could appear be- 
fore our gentlemen, but I told her there was no 
retreating now ; she was in for the whole, and 
must make the best of it. Knowing that the 
men about the house were used to the sight, we 
marched boldly out before them, and saw no 
change in their countenances. We next met 
Mr. Farrar, and envied him his good looks, for 
the cap became him, and his white suit only made 
him look a little stouter. Not so our young Eng- 
lishman. He looked like a fat baker or man 
cook, and when they both saw my figure they 
laughed themselves speechless. I had preceded 
the other ladies, and the gentlemen, having seen 
me first, were less affected by their appearance, 

and could control their mirth. Miss A was 

tall, and bore the disguise better than her com- 



244 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

panions. The cap and jacket were becoming to 
her, and the Englishman said that, viewed in 
front, she looked like a Circassian beauty, and 
viewed sideways, she was like a fat burgomaster. 
We soon entered a dim chamber of the mine ; 
and, scarcely reconciled to our dress, we were put 
to a further trial, by being required to sit astride 
on a long wooden bench, close to each other, each 
holding a lighted candle. This bench, which was 
on wheels, was dragged along at a moderate pace 
through a long gallery, just large enough to ad- 
mit us. Our wheels ran on wood, and on each 
side of us were wooden logs, through which the 
salt water is conveyed out of the mountain. We 
had not ceased to wonder at our predicament 
when we were allowed to dismount from our 
wooden horse, and found ourselves at the top of 
a shaft, down which we were to slide in the most 
curious way. Two large round poles, placed 
about eight inches apart, were carried from the 
top to the bottom of the shaft, at an angle of sixty 
degrees ; on these we were to seat ourselves and 
slide down into the dark abyss below, — for our 
lights revealed nothing beyond the entrance. Be- 
fore each lady was a miner seated on these poles, 
his legs extended on them ; he had hold of a rope 
which glided through his gloved hand, by which 
to regulate his pace. She put her hands on his 
shoulders and sat on the poles as he did. We 



SALT MINES. 245 

now saw the use of the aprons put on behind. 
That smooth black leather was to slide upon. 
Thus adjusted, and very carefully instructed by 
our valet, off we set, at a very moderate pace. 
I liked the motion, and soon wished to go faster. 
The gentlemen went down alone ; and any Yan- 
kee, accustomed to coasting when a boy, would 
soon feel at home on these slides. This first one 
was two hundred feet long. It seemed but too 
r short to me, and I was glad to hear that there 
were four more to be descended. We now 
walked a long way through very narrow galleries 
cut in the solid rock, stopping occasionally at 
some larger opening to see some part of the salt- 
works, or some memorial of a royal visit, or a 
collection of the productions of the mine, in 
which red salt in large transparent masses was 
the prettiest object, and the remains of Roman 
tools were the most curious. 

Again mounted on the top of a slide, I felt 
very courageous, and told my miner to go fast ; 
so away we sped into the dark abyss, and were 
down in a few seconds. Arrived at the bottom, 
I looked up at those on the way, and seeing the 
lights at the top, I could appreciate the length 
and steepness of the slide, and was surprised at 
my own fearless descent. We now walked a long 
way before coming to another slide, and when we 
had descended that, we found ourselves on the 



246 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

margin of an illuminated lake, which looked as 
black as ink, and was set round with lights in 
fanciful shapes. A wooden raft with seats on it 
received us, and we floated qver this subterranean 
lake with barely room enough between the water 
and the earth over our heads for us to sit upright. 
This was the most extraordinary part of the whole, 
for the roof is composed of earth and salt, and the 
salt is obtained by filling up the whole space 
with fresh water. This eats away the roof, and 
the salt dissolves in the water, whilst the earth 
falls to the bottom. They then lead off the salt 
water in logs, dig out the earth, and repeat the 
process. Now if the roof of this place is so easi- 
ly crumbled away, what prevents its falling in, 
and burying all under it in inextricable ruin ? 
The effect of the illumination was very beautiful, 
and our passage over that dark water seemed like 
a dream. On leaving it, we had two more slides. 
One of them was five hundred feet long, but we 
got on it half way down. In all, we descended 
on slides about eight hundred feet perpendicular 
height, besides going down some long and steep 
ladders. When on these we felt the full benefit 
of our male attire. We could not have gone 
down in safety in our usual dress. As it was, we 
had no difficulty. When all was seen and done 
in these vast subterranean wastes, which employ 
three hundred men daily within the mountain, 



SALT MINES. 247 

and two hundred without, we had to make our 
exit through a little gallery cut in the solid mar- 
ble rock, a mile and one third in length. To do 
this, we again mounted what they call their wood- 
en horse, and were drawn by miners, at a rapid 
rate, with a current of cold air in our faces, and 
in perfect silence. We had no space in which to 
move a limb, and were charged to keep erect and 
quiet, for the least motion would have brought us 
in contact with the rough marble wall that was 
flitting by us at a great rate. The time of this 
strange ride seemed very long. When we had 
advanced more than half way we saw daylight 
at the farther end, looking in the dark prospec- 
tive like a star. When at last we reached the 
opening, and were ushered back to the green 
earth, a fine sunset, with its rose-tints, made a 
very striking contrast to the scenes we had left. 

We paid well but willingly for our extraordi- 
nary expedition, found our bonnets, shawls, and 
parasols awaiting us in another dressing-room, 
and a woman to help us unrobe. Half an hour's 
walk brought us to the village of Hallein, where 
our carriage was waiting for us, and a drive of 
two hours carried us back to our hotel in Saltz- 
burg. 



248 BECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAKS. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

NOVELLO FAMILY. 

IN travelling through England at any time for 
the last ten years, yon may have seen at every 
railway station a framed and glazed placard, with 
the words Novello's Cheap Music. 

On inquiring the meaning of this, I was in- 
formed that a music publisher had brought within 
the reach of moderate fortunes and of profes- 
sional musicians the compositions of the great 
masters, such as Purcell, Beethoven, Mozart, 
Handel, and others, hitherto published in such 
an expensive manner as prevented their being 
known to thousands capable of enjoying them. 
Mr. Novello was of Italian origin, but was born 
in England and married to a truly English wife. 
He was a fine performer on the organ, and had 
such a high relish for classical music that he 
desired to make it accessible to the many. His 
large family of children inherited his musical 
taste and talent, and were endowed with fine 
voices. Some had other talents also, and all 
were highly gifted. His daughter Clara has long 
been considered the finest vocalist in England; 



NOVELLO FAMILY. 249 

and I have heard her say that she was brought 
before the public so young, that she thought only 
of satisfying her father by her performance, and 
paid no regard to her audience. In this way she 
escaped all embarrassment and never had a stage- 
fright. When she sang in operas, she was always 
attended at the . theatre by her mother. After 
great success in England she went to Italy, and 
was performing in Fermo, a city near the Adri- 
atic and within the boundary line of the Papal 
States. At Fermo was one of the estates of the 
Count Gigliucci. He was extravagantly fond of 
music, and was of course delighted with the per- 
formance of the lovely Clara Novello. On making 
her acquaintance he found she had been well 
educated, and that her vocal powers were her 
least merit. He became enamored of the woman 
rather than the singer, and resolved, if possible, 
to make her his wife. His suit was well received, 
and the prima donna of the public became his. 
She renounced her profession, and entered upon 
her duties as the mistress of a large establish- 
ment, determined to perform them so well that 
no one should think that her former life had un- 
fitted her for them. She found the servants in a 
state of insubordination, having taken advantage 
of the feeble rule of the Count's aged mother, 
and a thorough reform was instituted by the 

young wife. 

11* 



250 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

She had scarcely reduced everything to order, 
when, in 1848, the war of independence began, 
under the sanction of the Pope, and Count Gigli- 
ucci was chosen to represent Fermo in the first 
constitutional parliament in Rome, called the 
Consiglio Legislativo. Pio Nono, then a liberal, 
called on the patriots to furnish horses for his 
cavalry, and the Count was among the first to 
give his. When bad advisers frightened the Pope 
out of his liberal views, this act, with other proofs 
of the Count's patriotism, caused a sentence of 
exile to be passed upon him. He was obliged to 
leave suddenly, and his wife followed in their 
travelling carriage, drawn by oxen. They took 
up their residence in London, and the Countess 
resumed her professional career under the name, 
so dear to the English public, of Clara Novello. 

She became the happy mother of four beautiful 
children, two sons and two daughters, and she 
arranged her affairs so well that her public duties 
never interfered with her private ones. No chil- 
dren are better cared for than hers, and no hus- 
band could have a happier home. 

When the failing health of Mr. Novello obliged 
him to give up his business in London, he chose 
Nice for his residence ; and it was there that I 
had the happiness of making the acquaintance of 
his family. He had lost his wife, and there' lived 
with him then his eldest daughter and her hus- 



NOVELLO FAMILY. 251 

band, Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and his eldest 
son and youngest daughter, both single and de- 
voted to the happiness of each other. They lived 
in a villa about a mile out of the town of Nice, 
and not far from them the Count Gigliucci and 
his family spent half the year. 

My first call at Mr. Novello's convinced me that 
I should enjoy the society of his gifted children. 
The name of Mrs. Cowden Clarke recalled to 
my mind that elaborate work, the Concordance 
to Shakespeare, which I now found to be the per- 
formance of the lady before me. The walls of the 
room in which I was received were covered with 
pictures of great merit, the works of a brother who 
died at twenty-three years of age, leaving these 
numerous paintings to tell of his genius and his 
industry. A remarkable chair in this room at- 
tracted my attention. It had on its carved back 
a small bust of Shakespeare, in ivory, and a silver 
plate with an inscription, and was covered with 
the richest damask. I found it was an offering 
to Mrs. Cowden Clarke from some gentlemen and 
ladies in New York, as a token of their apprecia- 
tion of her Concordance. The day that I called, 
she had just received from the Appletons, in New 
York, a large volume containing engravings of 
sixteen " World-noted Women," for which Mrs. 
Cowden Clarke had furnished a biography of each. 
She lent the book to me, and I found her letter- 
press far superior to the pictures. 



252 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Among the numerous works of this lady, " The 
Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines " appears to 
me the most original and a wonderful production 
of her imagination. To form a just idea of what 
those heroines must have been when young, from 
what the great dramatist depicts them in mature 
life, seems to me a most difficult task and very 
successfully accomplished. 

Mr. Cowden Clarke was as true a worshipper 
of Shakespeare as his wife, and had been a popu- 
lar lecturer in England on the subordinate char- 
acters of that author's plays. 

The Novello family had a large circle of ac- 
quaintance among the inhabitants of Nice, as 
well as the winter visitors, and were invited to all 
their parties. These civilities they could not 
return in kind, owing to the ill health of their 
father ; but Mr. Cowden Clarke devised a way of 
returning them tenfold, by having several morn- 
ing receptions, in which he read his lectures to 
his friends, and a high treat it was. He read 
them with .dramatic effect, and made his hearers 
feel that they had never before appreciated the 
subordinate characters of those plays. 

Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke have edited sev- 
eral editions of Shakespeare ; and being admitted 
to their working-room, I saw the pains they took 
to ascertain the best reading of doubtful passa- 
ges. A long table was covered with old and 



NOVELLO FAMILY. 253 

modern editions of the play in hand, all open at 
the sentence they were upon ; and after careful 
comparison and consideration, they adopted what 
seemed to them the genuine language of their 
author. The text so chosen is now considered 
the best, and I have heard from them that they 
are preparing three editions at once,, according to 
their chosen version. 

The Countess Gigliucci was a great favorite 
with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and when 
the Princess Royal was to be married, they wished 
her to sing at a court concert. It was in the win- 
ter, which season she always spent at Nice, and 
when some one about the court wrote to ask her 
if she would not come to the Royal wedding, she 
declined. On hearing that she was not coming, 
Prince Albert asked her correspondent to tell her 
that he could not enjoy the concert unless he 
heard her voice. This compliment had the force 
of a command, and she made the winter journey 
to London, was highly appreciated by the Royal 
family, and returned well pleased with her ex- 
cursion. 

Since the deliverance of Italy, Count Gigliucci 
has taken possession of his estates at Fermo, 
and represents that place in the Parliament at 
Turin. Fermo has become a part of the present 
Kingdom of Italy. The Countess no longer sings 
in public, but takes- her proper place among the 



254 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

Italian nobility and gentry, and introduces her 
accomplished daughters into society. One of her 
sons is in the army, the other in the navy. When 
Nice became a part of France, the Novello family, 
who could not live under a despotic government, 
removed to Genoa, and settled themselves in a 
grand old palace, transformed by the judgment 
and taste of Mr. Alfred Novello into a luxurious 
modern mansion, occupying the finest situation 
near the city, and commanding the most exten- 
sive and beautiful views of the Mediterranean, 
its coasts and promontories. 



VOYAGES. 255 



CHAPTER XXX. 

VOYAGES. 

I HOLD in remembrance the peculiar features 
of nine voyages that I have made across the 
Atlantic, and am surprised to find on reflection 
the variety of the circumstances which mark 
each. The first one I made before it was be- 
lieved that steam would ever carry a vessel across 
the ocean, and this sailing voyage was forty-eight 
days long, owing to gales in the Channel which 
obliged us to put into Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, 
and also to calms on the ocean. 

Among the various incidents of this long voy- 
age was that of a man overboard, and the exer- 
tions of a boat's crew who volunteered to go after 
him, at the risk of their lives, but failed to reach 
him. We also had the robbery of a steerage 
passenger's trunk, containing all his property in 
silver dollars. A court of inquiry was held, all 
the passengers had their baggage searched, but 
the missing silver was not found for some days. 
At last one of the sailors pulled it up through 
the bung of a water-cask, sewed up in a long, 
narrow piece of canvas. He had seen a man 



256 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

making that covering for it, so the thief was de- 
tected, tried, convicted, and put in irons. Great 
was the joy of the emigrant, whose sole resource 
was that money, with which he intended to buy 
a farm. Another incident of this voyage was 
the meanness of one of the owners of the ship, 
who was a passenger on board of her, and took 
upon himself to economize, by rolling up the 
cabin carpet, taking down all the ornamental 
curtains from the berths, and feeding us on salt 
provisions. The gentlemen passengers signed a 
" round-robin," remonstrating in strong terms 
against his conduct, and insisting on his leaving 
all power in the hands of the captain. He did 
so ; the furniture was replaced, and we had fresh 
meat every day. 

My next voyage was one of only twenty days, 
sailing smoothly over a summer sea. One strange 
character among my fellow - passengers remains 
indelibly impressed on my memory. She was a 
great, stout Englishwoman, the wife of a British 
consul in some Spanish port of Central America. 
She was dressed in the fashions of twenty years 
before, short waists and narrow skirts, which 
made her stout figure look as if it were stuffed 
into a pillow-case. She told me she was the 
mother of two grown-up daughters ; that she had 
failed to make them like English girls, — they 
would imitate the Spanish ladies; and she was 



VOYAGES. 257 

so disgusted with their ways, that she had left 
them and their father to their own devices, and 
was on her way to England, where she intended 
to live in a pretty cottage in Devonshire. She 
also informed me that she had been twice mar- 
ried. Her first husband was an English officer 
in the East Indies, much older than herself, a 
widower and the father of three little girls., who 
had been sent to England to be educated. When 
they were old enough to be married, she was sent 
by their father to bring them home, with orders 
to give each a handsome outfit, such as would 
answer for them if they were soon married. She 
attended to all this, and they were on their way 
to India, when they stopped a few days at the 
Cape of Good Hope, and there, she said, " I mar- 
ried them all." " Married without seeing their 
father ! " I exclaimed. " 0, yes ; I formed very 
good matches for them, and when their father 
seemed disappointed at not seeing them, I told 
him he could not have married them better than 
I had done. ' A bird in the hand, you know, is 
worth two in the bush.' " 

My fourth voyage was the most interesting and 
agreeable one that I ever took. We sailed from 
New York on the 1st of August, 1836, on board 
the good ship Orpheus, with the very good Captain 
Bursley, in the extra good company of Harriet 
Martineau, Lieutenant Wilkes (who has since 



258 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

become famous by his capture of the Trent), 

Miss S. T , and Mr. S. G. W . These, 

with my husband and myself, made a party of 
six, who enjoyed a great deal together, and were 
quite independent of the rest of the passengers, 
who were disagreeable and even hostile to our 
coterie. One of the best state-rooms had been 
engaged for Miss Martineau and her friend Miss 

S. T ; but on coming on board, she found 

her berth occupied by the niece of an old Dutch 
lady, our fellow-passenger. After a gentle re- 
monstrance, Miss Martineau gave up her right to 
it in the most amiable manner, and took a very 
inferior one. The lady who had thus seized on 
what she had no right to never occupied the 
berth, but chose to sleep on a sofa in the ladies' 
cabin, thus enacting the part of " the dog in the 
manger." 

Our good captain had more to do than any man 
I ever saw in command of a ship. He had two 
poor, inefficient mates, which obliged him to be 
continually attending to every detail of sailing 
his vessel. He had a stupid crew of small men ; 
so he was often obliged to put his own hands to 
the halliards ; he was without a cook, and the 
steward supplied that deficiency, while he took 
the burden of the cabin arrangements, and drilled 
his two dull waiters, as ladies do their house-ser- 
vants, looking at the glasses to see that they were 



VOYAGES. 259 

wiped clean, and attending to the placing of the 
dishes on the table. All this was done with per- 
fect equanimity of temper. He was the beau 
ideal of a sailor, and the guardian angel of us all. 
We found Mr. Wilkes a very agreeable compan- 
ion, full of information and of good sense. He 
was going to Europe to get mathematical instru- 
ments for the expedition to the South Pole, so he 
and the Professor had long talks upon astronomy. 
An elderly Scotch gentleman often joined our 
party, and having lived thirty years in London, 
among authors and artists, he amused us with an- 
ecdotes of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Fuseli, Charles 
Lamb, Thomas Hood, and others. But our great- 
est treat was the conversation of Miss Martineau. 
She told us of the part she had taken in the new 
Poor Law Bill, the Tax Bill, and the Factory Bill; 
that she was consulted by the ministers and the 
commissioners, and bound to secrecy by them, 
and intrusted with documents the most private 
and precious. She was staying at Lambton 
Court, the seat of the Earl of Durham, while she 
was writing her Illustrations of the Poor Law 
System, and had, at her brother's house in New- 
castle, a great trunk of papers, containing the evi- 
dence collected for the ministers, which had been 
lent to her for materials for her work. Finding 
Lord Durham and Lord Ho wick very desirous of 
knowing beforehand what the new bill was to be, 



260 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

she told them some of its principal features, and 
brought over to Lambton Court some of the evi- 
dence for their perusal, which interested them 
extremely. In consequence of what Miss Marti- 
neau told Lord Durham, he made an experiment 
of the new law on his own estate, among the col- 
liers, many months before the bill passed, and it 
succeeded perfectly. 

She gave us a very amusing account of her in- 
tercourse with the commissioners appointed to 
examine into the indirect taxes, i. e., excise du- 
ties. They wanted her to write upon starch, but 
she said she could not illustrate such a prosaic 
subject ; it was not picturesque enough ; but she 
was willing to write on wine or glass ; and the 
abuses in those departments furnished a good 
field. As soon as it was known what subjects 
she was upon, persons in those trades came to 
her with the very information she needed. Her 

account of Lord A p and the direct taxes 

showed how little some of the ministers knew on 
the subject, and how important were her notes 
and hints. It was the same with the Relief Bill 
for Dissenters. Being a Dissenter herself, she 
was continually applied to for information on the 
subject. 

She told all these particulars of her intercourse 
with the great statesmen of the day with the 
same directness and simplicity that she would if 



VOYAGES. 261 

speaking of a third person. She was too full of 
the matter to be full of herself. 

I always felt, after a long talk with her, that 
she was a very remarkable woman, and that it 
was a great privilege to be in such close com- 
munion with her. 

When she was consulted about the Factory Bill, 
she objected to all legislation about children and 
parents, and told the ministers so ; but if that 
subject must be dealt with, she urged the addi- 
tion of schools to the new regulations, hoping that 
if the bill fell through in other particulars, that 
clause might remain and be the foundation of a 
national system of education. She was employed 
to interest Lord Brougham in the new bill, and 
she did so. Commissioners were to be appointed 
to inquire into the abuses of factory labor for 
children, and Miss Martineau, who had never 
asked a favor for herself or any one else, now 
proposed to the Ministry to nominate her phy- 
sician, Dr. Southwood Smith, as one of the three 
commissioners, because she thought him particu- 
larly well qualified for the business. This was 
immediately done, and he was surprised by the 
appointment before he knew a word about it. 

Very various were the subjects of Miss Marti- 
neau's conversation. She had no desire to speak 
always of herself. She only did that at the re- 
quest of her friends. One day she quoted some 



262 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

opinion of Kant's, and on some one's expressing 
a desire to know more of that writer, she offered 
to give us a lecture the next day, at ten o'clock, 
on the philosophy of Kant. We were all true 
to the appointment, and having seated her com- 
fortably on the broad taffrail of our ship, we 
grouped ourselves about her and listened for an 
hour to her exposition of the Kantian doctrines, 
with great satisfaction, though not, perhaps, with 
as much approval of it as she felt. 

I have since thought that her admiration of 
the philosophy of Kant may have been one of her 
first steps on that path which has conducted her 
to a disbelief of all revelation and of the immor- 
tality of the soul, — too melancholy a subject for 
me to dwell on here ! I would rather remember 
her as she was, when in this country and on that 
voyage. 

The most marked feature of my fifth voyage 
was my having for my fellow-passenger a learned 
and accomplished gentleman who belonged to 
the lay brotherhood of the order of Jesuits. He 
seemed to be learned in all languages, skilled in 
all sciences, to have travelled all over the civil- 
ized world, to have lived in courts and camps, to 
speak like an Englishman, to feel like an Italian, 
and yet to be pleased to call himself an Ameri- 
can. 

I was returning to the United States after an 



VOYAGES. 263 

absence of four years, with my husband m worse 
health than when he went abroad. The first At- 
lantic steamer, the Great Western, had made a 
few trips, but was always so crowded and the ac- 
commodations were so cramped and small, that 
we preferred a sailing vessel, with two large state- 
rooms and no crowd. My husband was very ill. 
The man I had hired to wait on him was unfaith- 
ful and unworthy, and I was indebted to strangers 
for the aid I needed. No one did so much for me 
as this accomplished Jesuit. He spared no pains 
to lessen my fatigue and anxiety. He had studied 
medicine, and acted the part of doctor and nurse. 
I think I should have broken down during that 
voyage, had I not had his kind services. 

After twelve years of suffering, my husband 
was sufficiently comfortable, in 1852, to allow of 
my paying a very short visit to my aged mother 
in England. A friend dined with us one Sunday, 
and said that if I would go, he would accompany 
me. On Monday I made up my mind to go, in- 
formed my friend of my resolution, and we en- 
gaged our berths on board of the steamer that 
was to leave on Wednesday. Among the passen- 
gers who came on board at Halifax was Mr. Cu- 
nard, the gentleman to whom we owe the most 
successful line of packets between the Old World 
and the New. He proved a very agreeable com- 
panion, and would amuse us for hours with histo- 



264 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

ries of London celebrities, with whom he seemed 
to be familiarly acquainted. He explained to 
me the numerous ways in which he provided for 
the safety of his steamers, the extra precautions 
taken, and the strict discipline maintained on 
board of them. 

We had a most propitious voyage, spent five 
weeks in England, and were back again in Boston 
harbor on the very day eight weeks that I had 
left. 

This experience of steam navigation deter- 
mined me never again to trust myself to the 
winds. 



SWITZERLAND. 265 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

SWITZERLAND. 

HAVING visited Switzerland at various times 
from youth to old age, and spent the larger 
part of two summers there, — one season on the 
Lake of Geneva, and another on that of Lucerne, 
— I feel intimately acquainted with the country ; 
too much so to trust myself with writing of it 
here. My recollections of ten days of the finest 
weather, spent on horseback among the high 
Alps, of twenty-two mountain passes made at 
different times, of days spent on the Righi, and 
weeks at Vevay, must all be put aside. I am not 
writing an itinerary. I may, however, note down 
a few curious incidents, pleasant meetings, and 
coincidences, which lent a romantic interest to 
my journeys there. 

A visit to Lausanne was made doubly agreeable 
by my husband's having a letter of introduction 
to M. de la Harpe, the venerable octogenarian, 
who was, in his youth, made by the Empress 
Catherine, of Russia, tutor to her sons. It was 
a very extraordinary thing for a despotic ruler to 
place her sons under the care of a republican, 
12 



266 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

and may, perhaps, account for their being so 
much better than their ancestors. The Emperor 
Alexander I. did honor to the instructions of his 
Swiss tutor, and his brother Nicholas may have 
owed some of his good qualities to that excellent 
man. Judging from the animated conversation 
of M. de la Harpe on the subject of American 
slavery, he may be the original cause of the 
emancipation of the serfs by the reigning Empe- 
ror. We found the old gentleman living in a 
pretty house, set in a fine garden, though in the 
middle of the town. He received us most gra- 
ciously, and began to talk at once on the banking 
system of the United States and on slavery. He 
treated both topics like a thinking man and a 
philanthropist. I turned the conversation on his 
own country, and congratulated him on the in- 
creased liberty of the Swiss. He responded very 
feelingly, spoke of the regeneration of his native 
land, and of his own efforts to procure trial by 
jury. He had fears of innovations being made 
too suddenly. " Festina lente " seemed to be his 
motto. 

At Geneva we became interested in the Polish 
exiles, who had recently fled thither from fresh 
acts of tyranny on the part of their Austrian 
rulers. Their accounts of the wrongs and suf- 
ferings of their unhappy country were heart- 
rending, and yet we could not help listening to 



SWITZERLAND. 267 

them, and giving to these patriots the poor con- 
solation of our sympathy. The valet de place 
whom we employed, told me that one of these 
Polish gentlemen was a man of high rank, and 
some years ago he visited Italy in style, with his 
carriage and. servants, and added, " I was well 
paid then as his guide to the sights of Naples, 
and now that he comes as a poor exile I wish to 
serve him for nothing, if you will dispense with 
my attendance on you." 

During an excursion from Geneva to Cha- 
mouni, I happened to be at the same hotel with a 
Russian nobleman, who was making what was to 
him a novel experiment, that of travelling with- 
out his valet de chambre or any of his suite. He 
had performed the short journey from Geneva 
without suffering from the want of attendance, 
and I saw him eat as good a supper as if he had 
been waited upon by his own man-servant ; but 
the next morning he came down to the dining- 
hall in the greatest rage, sent for the host, and 
upbraided him with having treated him worse 
than a dog; his own groom was better lodged 
than he had been, his bed had not been made, he 
had had no sheets, and he was thus ill-used be- 
cause he was a Russian. The master of the inn 
was so astonished that he could not speak, but let 
his guest exhaust himself with railing ; then he 
suddenly left the room, but returned in a few 



268 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

minutes, and told the Eussian that there were 
two beds in the room he had occupied, and one 
was handsomely made up with sheets and pillow- 
cases, and begged him to come and see it. The 
traveller now perceived his mistake, and came to 
the conclusion that he had better be always under 
the care of his valet. 

In Geneva I saw a collection of enamel paint- 
ings by Oonstantine, as beautiful as those of 
Bone, in London, and much more interesting, 
being exquisite copies of the finest pictures of 
the old masters, as well as some original land- 
scapes. 

These are a few of my recollections of the Lake 
of Geneva. Those associated with Lake Lucerne 
have for me an equal interest. My husband and 
I, accompanied by some young friends, were on 
our way into Italy, and passing up the lake in a 
steamer, where we saw a country-seat delightfully 
situated, at the foot of the Righi, and close to the 
border of the lake. I exclaimed, " How much 
I should like to spend next summer in that 
house ! " A boatman told us it was a Jesuit 
College. We thought the Jesuits knew how to 
choose a fine situation. After six months spent 
in Italy we were again in Lucerne, and learned 
that the place we so much admired had long 
been deserted by the Jesuits, and was now just 
opened as a boarding-house. We immediately 



SWITZERLAND. 269 

engaged a suite of rooms for our party of four. 
We found only one family there before us, consist- 
ing of Mr. and Mrs. C , a grown-up daughter, 

and a son only ten years old. We sat opposite to 
them at table. They were civil, but not conver- 
sable. On retiring to our own apartment I said 
to a young lady travelling with me, " That Miss 

C is in love, and her parents do not approve 

of her choice." My young friend laughed at the 
idea of my having truly interpreted the looks of 
these strangers. I assured her it was so, and 
that before three days she would be made the 
confidante of Miss 0— — -. 

It happened exactly so, and we became inter- 
ested in this love affair ; but as the lover had no 
means of supporting a wife, we did not wonder at 

the opposition of the parents. The C s were 

cultivated people, and belonged to a noble fam- 
ily ; they were very musical, the father played 
on the violoncello, the son on the violin, and the 
ladies on the piano. We used to spend our even- 
ings together most agreeably. We were joined 
in our summer residence by a family of our ac- 
quaintance from Marseilles, Mrs. R and her 

daughter, who proved a pleasant addition to our 
evening reunions. We ladies were all sitting 

round a table with our work, when Miss R 

produced her pocket-book to show Miss C a 

profile of the gentleman to whom she was en* 



270 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

gaged. The name was underneath, and Miss 

C was so startled and agitated that she was 

obliged to leave the room, in order to conceal her 
emotion. The name she saw was that of her 
lover, and she thought the profile was intended as 
a likeness of him, and that he was unfaithful to 

her and engaged to another. Miss R feared 

from this sudden flight that Miss C might be 

ill, so she went after her, and then an explana- 
tion took place which made both of them very 
happy. They were engaged to two brothers ! 

After much persuasion, Miss C consented to 

take Mrs. R into her confidence, and it was 

well that she did so, for that lady took such an 
interest in the affair that she influenced her hus- 
band to provide a career for the younger brother, 
as he had already done for the elder one; she 
reconciled the parents to the match, invited them 
all to her house in Marseilles, and there both 
brothers were married to the ladies of their choice. 

I saw Miss C once after she was Mrs. M , 

and we talked over together the curious combina- 
tion of circumstances which had led to her happy 
union. 

All travellers who have made the pass of the 
Spliigen, and come down through the Via Mala, 
must have the most vivid recollection of its sub- 
lime scenery and its wonderful road. I was once 
walking with my husband through the last four 



SWITZERLAND. 271 

miles of this grand pass, when we came, at a 
sudden turn of the road, upon a school of twenty- 
P four boys, running, gambolling, and shouting 
among the rocks and precipices. Their light 
blouses and rosy faces gave a cheerful air to the 
scene, before so solemn ; and their small figures 
made still more apparent the immense magni- 
tude of the objects around them. These active 
little creatures amused themselves in throwing 
down from that middle bridge, which looks as if 
poised in air, large masses of stone into the river 
far below, whilst one of their teachers counted, 
on his watch, the number of seconds they took hi 
falling, and so ascertained the depth. While the 
boys were thus engaged, the head-master, Mon- 
sieur TopfFer, was sketching that well-known 
bridge which forms the prominent feature of 
every picture of this pass. This pedestrian party 
put up at the same inn that we did that night, 
and there we learned what a delightful relation 
subsisted between Monsieur Topffer and his pupils. 
We made the acquaintance of two boys from 
New Orleans, whose parents were known to one 
of our party, and they told us how much they 
enjoyed these pedestrian journeys, and that Mon- 
sieur TopfFer wrote down every evening the events 
of the day, calling upon every boy to mention 
anything he wished to have recorded. This diary 
he illustrated with spirited sketches, many of 
them comic scenes in w T hich the boys figured. 



272 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

When we returned to Geneva we found our- 
selves lodged very near Monsieur Topffer's house, 
and frequently saw his boys. The very beau ideal ' 
of a school was his ; both he and his wife were 
loved and honored by their pupils, who extolled 
them with enthusiasm. They brought us former 
diaries of their pedestrian tours, which were 
printed with illustrations, and a copy presented 
to each boy. 

Monsieur Topffer's own ideas of education 
were so wise and good, that he naturally saw 
with great clearness the mistakes and follies of 
others, and he published a little book of carica- 
ture sketches, Histoire de M. Crepin, with pun- 
gent explanations, that ridiculed various modern 
systems, and were very humorous. Several other 
works of the same kind followed, but long after I 
knew him he changed his style of authorship, 
and made himself famous as an elegant writer of 
fiction. Even the Parisian critics, jealous as they 
are of Genevan authors, extolled the purity of 
his style and admired his works. His Nouvelles 
G-enevoises is the most charming collection of 
tales that I am acquainted with in the French 
language, and Le Presbytere is one of the most 
beautiful and pathetic stories in any language. 



A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 273 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 

I ONCE had a delightful opportunity of observ- , 
ing the effect produced on persons of all 
classes and all ages by the union of beauty and 
goodness in a lovely young lady who travelled 
with me through France, Switzerland, and Italy. 
She was spiritually-minded, and so thoroughly 
imbued with the love of her fellow-beings that it 
shone through every act, lending a charm to all 
she did and said. No one could resist her fas- 
cinations, and her presence was a talisman that 
unlocked all doors and propitiated all officials. 
Often have I seen custom-house officers, addressed 
by her, forget their duty, and pass our luggage 
without examination. We travelled in Switzer- 
land before it was full of great hotels, and used 
to put up at roadside inns, where the host and 
his family waited on their guests. These were 
always charmed by the beautiful and gracious 
stranger; they would sometimes encumber her 
with service in order to express their admiration, 
and everything in the house was put at our dis- 
posal for her sake. 

12* B 



274 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

On arriving in a village, she would occasion- 
ally walk out alone, and we were sure to find her 
surrounded by the children in the street, whom 
she was amusing. The little dirty creatures were 
interesting to her. She carried her guitar with 
her, and when singing to it, in a little inn parlor, 
I have seen the curtainless windows filled with 
faces pressed close to the glass outside, looking 
at and listening to her, while the family of our 
host was crowding the doorway. She had a way 
of treating every one as if they were of the utmost 
importance to her. 

In cities, she was followed and pointed out as 
the beautiful American, and at the great theatre 
of San Carlo, in Milan, the attention she attracted 
was really embarrassing to her. In Florence, Mr. 
Powers was so delighted with her, that he begged 
to be allowed to make a portrait bust of her, in 
whiclrhe was very successful. She could not be- 
lieve that her face deserved such a compliment, 
and it was with great difficulty that I persuaded 
her to have it done. 

In Rome, our party was indebted to her charms 
for having the best seats at all public shows, and 
access to places closed to other strangers. When 
I was bargaining with an Italian Marquis for a 
suite of rooms, in Rome, I objected to his price 
for them as too high, and named the utmost that 
I was willing to give. He could not take it, but 



A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 276 

just' then my young friend appeared, and in her 
sweet voice said, " You surely will accept the 
terms of Madame." He gazed at her in silent 
wonder and admiration, then bowed low and said, 
" I can refuse you nothing." 

When she was presented to that interesting 
old man, Thorwaldsen, he was captivated by her, 
and on our second visit, he presented to her a 
bronze medal with his own head on it. We 
found this great artist living in the same small 
house which he took when he first went to Rome, 
though his fortunes had greatly changed. His 
sympathies were freely given to all poor artists, 
and he aided many by letting them hang their 
works on his walls, and when strangers came to 
see him, he would point out the merits of the 
pictures, and sometimes sell them for the needy 
artists. One picture which we saw there saved 
the life of a young man, reduced to despair by 
want of employment. Thorwaldsen had it hung 
in his parlor ; it was admired, and produced so 
many orders that it made the man's fortune. 
These acts harmonized perfectly with the coun- 
tenance of that fine old man, which beamed with 
benevolence. He looked very much like a por- 
trait of him which I had seen hi Boston, and he 
was quite pleased to hear that a picture of him 
was in the United States, as he supposed none 
had ever gone there. This man, whose fame has 



276 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

spread all over the civilized world, who was then 
at the head of his profession, the first of living 
sculptors, received all his company in a ragged 
old dressing-gown, put on over his drawers, and 
held round him to hide the absence of panta- 
loons. He was working on a small has relief 
while talking to us. 

In his little narrow bedroom were many pre- 
cious relics. At the head of his bed was a por- 
trait of Raphael, copied from that done by Pietro 
Perugino, in the Vatican ; it represents him as a 
soldier asleep. Civic wreaths, long since faded 
and dried, were lying about. A bust of Napoleon 
I. showed that his once powerful patron was not 
forgotten. Very few of his own works were in 
his house ; but in his numerous studios and work- 
shops we saw a very large number. He had 
one married daughter, to whom he gave a hand- 
some marriage portion, telling her that was all 
she would ever have from him, as the rest of his 
fortune would be left for the benefit of poor artists. 
We saw him once at a ball, given by the Duch- 
ess Torlonia, in full dress, which improved his 
appearance and made him look very handsome. 
He was of medium height, of rather square build, 
with a fair complexion, blue eyes, and flowing 
white locks. I stood near him when he was 
playing the original game of cards that was in- 
vented for the amusement of the crazy French 



A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 277 

King. The cards were very large, and there 
were five suits of them, and each suit had five 
court cards, a knight being added to the number. 
What are spades with us were swords with them, 
— spada being the Italian for sword, it was cor- 
rupted into spades. Their clubs were represen- 
tations of Hercules's club, and ten of them re- 
quired a very large card. Tricks were taken as 
in whist, but it appeared to me a much more 
complicated game. 



278 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

WEARINESS OF ETIQUETTE. 

IBELIEYE there are many minds among the 
votaries of fashion which are chafed and irri- 
tated by the restraints imposed upon them by the 
conventional society in which they are born, and 
such minds would often emancipate themselves, 
were it not that any attempt to do so is frowned 
down as ill breeding, or laughed at as eccen- 
tricity. 

I know the daughter of an English earl who 
was so wearied by her training for high life that 
she eloped with her father's gardener, conformed 
entirely to her new position, and was very happy 
in it. She was never noticed by her family. 
They seemed to ignore her existence. Her hus- 
band was intelligent and industrious ; he became 
the owner of a valuable nursery-garden near 
London, exhibited his plants at the horticultural 
shows, and attended the dinners given on such 
occasions. The last I heard of him was at 
one of these dinners, when he was challenged to 
drink wine by his noble father-in-law, and did 



WEARINESS OF ETIQUETTE. 279 

it as simply as if it had been with a fellow-gar- 
dener. 

In visiting the retreat of the celebrated* ladies 
of Llangollen, I learned enough about them to 
convince me that it was a weariness of the cere- 
monies and restraints of high life, with a painful 
sense of the hollowness of worldly professions, 
that drove them to cut their connection with the 
society in which they were born, and lead a rural 
life among the Welsh mountains. Their disap- 
pearance from the fashionable world made a great 
sensation at the time, and it was generally sup- 
posed that some love affair was at the bottom of 
it. It was difficult to make the public renounce 
that idea, and the newspapers were for years in- 
venting fictions to favor it. There was nothing 
remarkable in the lives they led except the privi- 
lege of doing as they pleased. There was no 
great scope for benevolence, but they were kind 
to their poor neighbors. They abridged the 
trouble which attends a lady's dress by wearing 
all the time cloth riding-habits and beaver hats. 
When young they rode much on horseback, when 
old they indulged in a carriage, and occasionally 
dined with a friend, at a distance of twenty miles, 

* These ladies were Lady Eleanor Butler and the Hon. Miss 
Ponsonby, who suddenly quitted the world of fashion in Lon- 
don, and retired into Wales, where they spent the rest of their 
lives. 



280 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

but always returned home at night. They were 
never known to sleep out of their own house, and 
so it was supposed that they had made a vow to 
that effect. 

The daughters of George III. were often weary 
of court etiquette, and used to get rid of it by 
spending their mornings at Frogmore, near Wind- 
sor, a small establishment, where they enjoyed 
rural pleasures and were never intruded on by 
company. There they had their dumb pets and 
fed their own chickens, ran out and in unat- 
tended, and were entirely free from the trammels 
of royalty. I have been there just after they 
had left the place, and found their work and 
their books lying about, and everything looking 
like the home of a private family. 

The wife of an officer in the army, who had 
apartments in Windsor Castle, said that the prin- 
cesses would escape into her room sometimes, 
and beg for a glass of beer to quench their thirst, 
alleging as a reason for their doing so, that if 
they asked for it in their own home, they must 
wait for a barrel to be tapped, and that would 
cause a new office to be created, for serving beer 
to them between meals, and that barrel would 
become the perquisite of some one of the house- 
hold, and a fresh barrel would be tapped every 
time a glass of beer was called for. So great 
was the discomfort of a royal household in those 



WEARINESS OF ETIQUETTE. 281 

days. The great good sense of Queen Victoria 
has altered many of these things for the better. 

I will here insert an anecdote of Queen Char- 
lotte, which, though not an instance of weariness 
of etiquette, shows that while she was usually a 
slave to her own rules of form and ceremony, she 
could violate those of politeness and delicacy. 
Before there were any railroads in England, the 
royal family used to travel to ' and from Windsor 
in carriages and four, and Queen Charlotte would 
sometimes honor one of her nobility by a call in 
passing, and take lunch at the house. On one 
of these calls, she partook of some cake which 
she praised very highly. Sometime after the 
lady of the house sent a loaf of the same kind of 
cake as a present to the Queen. This she re- 
peated, at the same season, every year, until 
she received a message from her Majesty that 
she should like a little more sugar in the cake. 
"Does she take me for her confectioner?" ex- 
claimed the offended lady. She sent no more 
cake to the Queen. 

A baron of high degree, in South Wales, chose 
a novel way of ridding himself of the form and 
etiquette which belonged to his rank. He de- 
termined so to ally himself in marriage that none 
of his aristocratic friends should be willing to 
visit his wife. He married a pretty and amiable 
milliner in the country town near his estates, 



282 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

had a fine family of children, and led a very 
happy life as a farmer. He has been seen, on a 
market-day, with the leaves of a fine large turnip 
hanging out of his coat-pocket. It was one he 
had been exhibiting to his brother-farmers. 



THE MAID OF HONOR. 283 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE MAID OF HONOR. — THE ORPHANS. — THE 
GENERAL'S LADY. 

TO any one who lias read the Life of Madame 
d'Arblay, and remembers how irksome it 
was to her to fill the place of maid of honor to 
the Queen of George III., and how earnestly she 
begged her father to take her away from court, it 
will seem hardly credible that a young lady in 
the same position died broken-hearted because 
she was dismissed from her post of honor. But 
I know of such an instance, and heard from 
Mends of the person to whom it relates, the fol- 
lowing account. 

The lady was young and beautiful, the daugh- 
ter of an officer of high rank in the army, and as 
a favor to her father she was appointed maid of 
honor. The Prince of Wales was then young 
and handsome, and considered the most elegant 
man in England. Everybody at the court de- 
sired to be distinguished by him, and some of the 
younger ladies hoped to make him in love with 
them. 

The heroine of my story, after being at court 



284 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

for a few weeks, wrote to some friend at home 
that she enjoyed herself very much, that the 
Prince was very attentive to her, and she hoped 
in a few more weeks to have him at her feet. 
She then went on to find great fault with the 
German ladies in waiting, described them as 
cross and ugly, and showed the same aversion to 
tliem that Madame d'Arblay always felt. She 
closed her letter in haste, and an attendant took 
it while the ink of the address was still wet. It 
became so blotted and blurred that it could not 
be read, and was consequently returned to the 
palace to be claimed and redirected. It fell into 
the hands of one of the German ladies ; curiosity 
and suspicion made her open it, and there she 
found ample matter to ruin the writer. She 
showed the letter to the Queen, who was enraged 
at the way in which her son was mentioned, and 
sending for the father of the culprit, then on 
duty at the palace, she put the letter into his 
hands, and told him to take his daughter away 
and never let her appear again in her royal pres- 
ence. The father was much distressed, but con- 
sidered his daughter's fault inexcusable and the 
punishment no more than she deserved. She 
went home, sickened and died. Her jewels 
and trinkets were distributed among her young 
friends, and the daughter of one of them gave me 
a garnet and gold necklace which used to grace 



THE ORPHANS. 285 

the lovely white throat of the maid of honor, and 
which I still possess. The sight of it has recalled 
this history. 

There came to Milford Haven, while I resided 
there, two little girls whose parents had died in 
the East Indies while the children were at school 
in England. They were brought to Milford be- 
cause a brother of their father lived there, and 
also another distant relative, and a child was left 
with each of these relations. The family on 
whom these orphans had the least claim, treated 
their adopted one as if she had been their own 
child, and her life would have been very happy 
had her sister been equally well cared for. This 
sister was grieved for her being made a mere 
drudge in the kitchen of her uncle. He was an 
easy, quiet man, who left everything to his wife's 
management. She was a worldly-minded woman, 
making the best show she could on a small in- 
come, and was determined to make the most out 
of this unwelcome addition to her family. She 
dismissed one of her servants, and made her 
niece do as much of her work as was possible for 
a child of ten years old. The child was ill fed, 
ill clothed, and ill lodged ; a more unhappy little 
being cannot well be imagined. Her sister was 
very rarely allowed to see her, because the con 
trast in their situations made her more miserable, 
or, as the aunt would say, more obstinate and 



286 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

stupid. The treatment of this child began to be 
talked about in the town, but no one had the 
moral courage to remonstrate with the uncle, 
and her condition seemed utterly hopeless, when 
one of those remarkable changes came to her, 
which we are apt to think belong only to fiction, 
but which I have frequently seen in my experi- 
ence of seventy years. A rich aunt of these chil- 
dren, on their mother's side, arrived in Milford, 
travelling post in her own carriage, and with a 
man-servant and a lady's-maid in attendance. 
On the evening of her arrival she put up at the 
Nelson Hotel, and inquired of the landlady where 
the gentleman lived who had adopted a brother's 
orphan child. This led to a disclosure of the 
miserable condition of the niece she was in search 
of. She could not wait till the morning without 
seeing her, but drove at once to the house, which 
was a little way out of the town. The master 
and mistress were gone to a card-party. The 
stranger asked to see a little girl who lived thei*e, 
and made her way into the house, resolved to 
have an interview with her. The maid-servant 
was in great consternation at having to send the 
barefooted and ragged Cinderella into the pres- 
ence of such a fine lady ; but it could not be 
avoided, and she was astonished to see the stran- 
ger embrace the child and weep over her ; still 
more was she surprised to hear the lady tell the 



THE GENERAL'S LADY. 287 

little girl that she would eonie the next day and 
take her away with her, and she should be her 
child. 

The orphan who had fallen into good hands 
was so happy with her adopted parents, that it 
was thought best not to remove her ; but the one 
who had suffered so much was carried off, edu- 
cated, and brought up in a manner suited to the 
condition of her aunt. 

A handsome young girl, the daughter of a 
tradesman in Dublin, married from ambition an 
Irish Knight, old enough to be her father, and 

was highly gratified by becoming Lady D . 

Nor was her grief very poignant when she lost 
her husband, for the title remained to her, with 
money enough to make her independent. Her 
beauty and her lively conversation soon gave her 
many lovers, among whom she chose a general 
officer in the English army, who had distin- 
guished himself in the field, and was a man of 
real worth. His niece was my intimate friend,, 
and from her I learned many particulars of the 
General's family. He had a handsome establish- 
ment at the West End of London, and introduced 
his wife to a select circle of friends and acquaint- 
ances ; but these did not satisfy her ambition. 
She aimed at belonging to the highest circle of 
fashionables, — a most exclusive set, who ruled 
the balls at Almack's rooms, and often refused to 



288 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

admit into their coterie ladies of the highest rank. 
Lady Cawdor, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, 
said they, would not let her belong to them, — she 
was not stylish enough. To penetrate this aris- 
tocratic circle was the endeavor of Lady D *s 

life ; but the widow of an Irish Knight could not 
be admitted. She would have stood a better 
chance without her title. 

General F was a great favorite with George 

III. I remember being at a review of ten thou- 
sand troops in Hyde Park, and hearing that the 

King, on meeting General F , said to him, 

" You feel better to-day than you did this day 
forty years." The General's memory was not as 
good as the King's. He did not recollect that it 
was the anniversary of the battle of Minden, at 
which he had held an important command, and 
had distinguished himself. His royal master had 
not forgotten it. 

Lady D had three children, a son and two 

daughters, whom she educated very carefully, 
and brought up under the strictest discipline. 
It was well for them that their health was good, 
for she never allowed them to complain of any 
bodily suffering. A headache was never to be 
mentioned, and the word nervous was banished 
from her vocabulary. She soon married off her 
eldest daughter to her satisfaction ; but the second 
one, though far more beautiful than her sister, 



THE GENERAL'S LADY. 289 

was decidedly weak in her intellect ; and when 
one of the most remarkable statesmen of the 
day began to pay her particular attentions, her 
mother charged her to speak to him as little as 
possible, never to introduce a subject of conver- 
sation, but to follow his lead, and always to listen 
with profound attention to what he said. This 
policy was successful, and the clever cabinet min- 
ister married a weak woman without knowing it. 

Whenever the London season came round, 

Lady D gave what was then called a rout, 

and turned her house topsy-turvy to make it hold 
the greatest possible number of guests. On one 
of these occasions she had been exerting herself 
to make the most show on the least expenditure, 
and was rushing from room to room in the great- 
est dishabille, when a carriage full of callers drew 
up at her door. In a few minutes she was in an 
elegant morning neglige, seated in her boudoir, 
stringing pearls, and after a few minutes spent 
by the guests in the drawing-room, they were 
ushered into her presence, and she said, with the 
languid air then practised by fine ladies, " You 
find me busy ; one must be so on these silly oc- 
casions ; I receive company to-night, and must 
have my necklace ready." 

This fine lady had a violent temper, and if her 
husband had not been remarkably calm and im- 
perturbable, they could not have lived together. 

13 8 



290 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

One evening after dinner, as the family were sit- 
ting round the fire chatting, a dispute arose be- 
tween Lady D and the General, in which he 

maintained his ground, and though he did it very 

calmly, Lady D was so exasperated that she 

threatened to leave his house forever, pulled the 
bell, and ordered her carriage to come to the 
door as soon as possible. The footman took her 
order, and then the General said, in the gentlest 
tone, " When you have done that, bring some 
coals to the fire." This was too much for Lady 

D , she burst into tears and wept away her 

passion. Another victory won by the General. 



PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 291 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 

I KNEW a successful lawyer in Paris who was 
resolved to make his only son follow in his 
steps, share his practice while he lived, and suc- 
ceed to it at his death. The son was amiable 
and obedient, but ere he left school he began to 
show a decided inclination for art. His love of 
music was so strong that he learned to play on 
the piano with extraordinary facility, and also to 
compose, when very young. His father approved 
of music as an innocent recreation, but frowned 
on his attempts to compose, and rarely allowed 
him to go to the opera. This gentle youth wrote 
pretty verses ; his father also discouraged that. 
He modelled statuettes of horses and riders in 
clay, but they were all swept away as rubbish. 
Nothing was considered by the father as reason- 
able work, but that which his business required, 
and he kept his son strictly to it. A more abso- 
lute father I never knew ; and while deprecating 
his severity, I must give him credit for having 
brought up his son a model of purity and up- 
rightness, in the midst of a most corrupt state of 



292 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

society. This son, so strictly educated, was a 
highly intellectual and spiritual being, full of the 
finest feelings, and capable of high enjoyment 
from simple pleasures. He was the delight of his 
mother and sister. Happily for this sensitive 
being, he was not obliged to accept a wife of his 
father's choice, which would have been his fate 
had not very unusual circumstances led to a 
mutual attachment between him and a young 
lady who was a desirable match in the opinion 
of the father. An early marriage added greatly 
to his happiness, but did not lessen die power of 
his father over him. Long after he was married 
he could not be summoned into the presence of 
his father without trembling. All who know 
what the parental relation can be in France will 
understand the effect here produced by it on a 
very sensitive nature. 

I was spending a winter in the south of France 
when this young couple brought me a letter of 
introduction from a lady in Paris. I began the 
acquaintance without the least idea that they 
were connected with anybody whom I already 
knew. It was therefore a mutual pleasure to 
discover that the youth just introduced was the 
son of an old friend of my girlhood. He had 
often heard his father speak of me, and readily 
adopted me as a family friend. His health had 
been injured by close application to office busi- 



PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 293 

ness, and his physician had frightened his father 
into giving him leave to spend a winter in a mild 
climate. It was the first vacation of more than a 
few days that he had ever been allowed, and he 
luxuriated in its freedom and leisure. 

He was a great, acquisition to me and my party 
that winter. With the simplicity and gayety of a 
child, he was gifted with the talents of no ordinary 
man. He was the life and spirit of a very genteel 
company of fellow-boarders in a hotel, and got up 
private theatricals among a set of young people 
who needed a world of teaching to make them 
act at all. He had such a talent for it that he 
seemed born for that vocation, and having found 
it difficult to get any drama that his slender 
troupe could act, he wrote a very clever comedy 
called " The Female Quixote," in which he ridi- 
culed strong-minded women and women's rights 
very humorously. Besides drilling and prompt- 
ing, and managing everything, he played on the 
piano delightfully between the acts, and when 
the play was over he was the very soul of wit 
and pleasantry. His performance on the piano 
was marked by taste and feeling rather than by 
the noisy execution so much in fashion then. 
His wife told me that on some grand occasion in 
Paris a musical composition of his was the favor-' 
ite piece. 

Never before had this busy lawyer had the dis- 



294 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY TEARS. 

posal of his own time, nor so much leisure to 
indulge his tastes, and he improved it to the 
utmost. He now took to modelling with great 
zest, and used the studio of an artist who was 
perfectly amazed at the work of one who, he 
thought, had come to learn of him. This ama- 
teur sculptor made a beautiful equestrian statu- 
ette, and when I regretted that I could not carry- 
away a plaster cast of it, he made a very pretty 
las relief of a horse and had it multiplied in a 
composition that would bear transportation. I 
took the copy he gave me to Florence, and 
showed it to the best sculptors there, one of 
whom said, " The man who could do that, should 
never do anything else but model." They were 
astonished to hear that it was done as an amuse- 
ment by a successful Paris lawyer. " Tell him," 
said another artist, " that he may be thQ greatest 
lawyer in the land, and his name will never live 
after him ; but if he excels in sculpture, he will 
be immortal." 



THE VILLAGE APOTHECARY. 295 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE VILLAGE APOTHECARY. 

THE English apothecary of forty years ago 
was often a man ignorant of the first prin- 
ciples of the healing art, who passed from the use 
of the mortar and pestle, in his employer's shop, to 
the dispensing of drugs to the sick. This class 
of men no longer exists ; they have given place 
to the medical practitioner, who is obliged to 
study medicine and pass an examination before 
he is allowed to prescribe as a medical man. 

It is more than forty years since I passed a 
winter in Devonshire with an old friend, and 
heard that her most companionable visitor was 
the village apothecary. Seeing my surprise, she 
told me that he had been in the Guards, and 
went to Spain as surgeon to a dragoon regiment, 
and was thus thrown into the most polished soci- 
ety. From another admirer of this uncommon 
apothecary I gleaned the following history : 

In the Peninsular War he received a wound 
in his leg, which made him lame for life, and he 
took this so to heart that it made him shun so- 
ciety while in Spain. But much worse trials 



296 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

awaited him on his return home. His wife, with 
whom he had lived very happily for many years, 
— his pride being continually gratified by ths 
attention which her beauty and conversational 
powers attracted, — was a complete piece of de- 
ception, and having ventured too far on his cre- 
dulity, was entirely unmasked. She had been 
dreadfully extravagant during his absence, and 
knew not how to clear herself of debt before his 
return ; so she laid an ingenious plot for swind- 
ling, was detected and prosecuted. The conse- 
quences involved her husband still deeper in debt, 
and on his return these embarrassments, with his 
shame and grief, led him to bury himself in an 
obscure village, and by an unremitting attention to 
his profession, endeavor to extricate himself with 
honor from the pecuniary part of his difficulties. 
What induced his detestable wife to inflict the 
next trial he never told. After a lingering and 
unaccountable illness, he discovered that he was 
laboring under the effects of poison, which his 
wife was administering, a little at a time, in al- 
most everything he took. As soon as he admit- 
ted a suspicion of the fact, he sent for her brother, 
who was also a medical man, and they proceeded 
to analyze some coffee which his wife had just 
presented to^ him, with the most endearing per- 
suasions to drink it. A quantity of arsenic was 
clearly discovered. Just then she entered the 



THE VILLAGE APOTHECARY. 297 

room. He broke forth in a- paroxysm of rage 
and anguish, and ordered her never to appear 
in his sight again. She retreated to her moth- 
er's apartments (an old lady who lived with 
them, and was seldom able to leave her room,) 
and there the poor criminal had lived for nearly 
three years when this account was given to me. 
She was as effectually confined by fear and shame 
as if she had been under lock and key. She 
knew her life was in his hands, but relied entirely 
on his humanity. He knew that his was not safe 
a moment, but could not bear to drive her from 
the shelter of his roof. 

It sometimes appeared a mere fable to me that 
a murderess lived so near to my friend's house, 
and that the refined, romantic man, whose con- 
versation afforded us so much pleasure, had been 
driven from society by such undeserved disgrace, 
such tragic circumstances. He seemed to dread 
everything that could remind him of his former 
happiness ; the contrast was too strong to be en- 
dured. When we remonstrated with him for 
neglecting literature, and urged him to embellish 
his retirement with some of its best productions, 
he replied, " No, I must not, I cannot, I am 
afraid of being in love with the world again. 
Since I have buried myself here it has been my 
study to deaden every feeling, every taste, and to 
become, if possible, a mere machine." 

13* 



298 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE GARDENER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 

WHEN Napoleon I. threatened to invade 
England, and dictate terms of peace 
from St. James's Palace, a very large militia force 
was added to the standing-army of the country, 
and men of all classes cheerfully enrolled them- 
selves in the regiments of their different counties. 
The drilling was as thorough as that of the regu- 
lar army, and the discipline as strict. They lived 
in barracks, and their quarters were frequently 
changed, to make them more of soldiers and less 
of citizens. Many fine ladies left luxurious homes 
and lived either in lodgings in some country town 
or in the officers' quarters, in the barracks. It 
was well for those regiments whose officers had 
their wives with them, for where there was no 
female society the manners and the morals of the 
young men were apt to degenerate. 

A gentleman whom I. knew when he was in 
middle-life, told me of his experiences when he 
entered the militia, a stripling of eighteen, as 
first-lieutenant. He was the youngest officer in 
the regiment, and was both the plaything and the 



THE GARDENER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 299 

victim of his comrades. He was sometimes made 
to sit on a chair in the middle of the mess-table, 
after dinner, and drink wine with every one pres- 
ent, until, quite tipsy, he was borne off to his bed. 
He was much displeased at being so treated, but 
did not know how to help himself. One day he 
left the mess-table before the dinner was over, and 
walked out of the town into a neighboring wood, 
on purpose to avoid being made to drink wine. 
Much pleased at having thus foiled his torment- 
ors, he walked on briskly until he came upon a 
group of young people, which he stopped to ad- 
mire. Among some hazel bushes was one higher 
than common, and in its branches was a little 
boy gathering the nuts and throwing them into 
the apron of a very pretty girl, who was holding 
it up to receive them. A slight but well-rounded 
figure was shown to advantage by her attitude, 
while her head, thrown back, prevented her luxu- 
riant curls of light hair from hiding her large 
blue eyes and fair complexion. A small aque- 
line nose, well-cut lips, and the whitest of teeth, 
completed her charms. She was a study for a 
painter. Though no artist, the young lieutenant 
was transfixed with admiration of this rustic 
beauty. She and her companion were so en- 
grossed by their nut-picking that they did not 
observe the stranger, who watched them from a 
distance, until they had filled their basket and 



300 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY TEARS. 

were going off with it. He then joined them 
and entered into conversation with the girl. She 
answered his questions, and put some to him, in 
a simple, artless way, that well became her. He 
accompanied her to her home, a neat little cot- 
tage surrounded by flowers and vegetables, and 
left her at the garden-gate. That one interview 
shaped all his future life. He became extrava- 
gantly in love with this Ellen Potter, the garden- 
er's granddaughter ; he wooed and won her 
clandestinely, for she never allowed him to make 
the acquaintance of her grandfather, knowing 
that he would forbid any young officer to visit 
her. Many were the meetings in the wood, and 
many were the hours spent in the old man's 
house, when he was absent working in other peo- 
ple's gardens. 

Lieutenant B was an orphan, and heir to a 

small fortune. His guardian gave him a hand- 
some allowance, and that with his pay would sup- 
port two as well as one ; so he resolved to marry 
the girl of his heart, but to keep it a secret 
until his regiment should be ordered elsewhere. 
His brother officers soon discovered that he was 
in love, but never supposed that he would marry 
a peasant girl ; they thought he was only amus- 
ing himself, and they were satisfied with cracking 
their jokes upon him. Ellen was such a mere 
child that she knew not the importance of the 



THE GARDENER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 301 

act when she went to church with her lover 
and was there married. She did it to please 
him, and that was enough for her. On returning 
home she put her wedding-ring in her pocket, 
and went about her work as usual. 

When news came that the regiment was to 
move into a distant county, Ellen's marriage 
must be disclosed to her grandfather. He com- 
manded her respect and veneration, and she 
dreaded to tell him what she had ventured to do 
without consulting him. She has described to 
me the scene when she and her husband stood 
before the old man and confessed that they were 
married ; and I wish I could remember verbatim 
the words of her grandfather, for they were full 
of wisdom and of concern for her future happi- 
ness. He was not angry ; he was only sorry for 
the mistake his beloved Ellen had made. 

The young officer had fancied that his alliance 
with a peasant girl was an honor conferred on 
the gardener, but what he now heard made him 
regard the connection very differently. He was 
humbled, and promised the old man to do every- 
thing in his power to protect his wife in the new 
position in which he should place her. 

He obtained leave of absence, and did not join 
his regiment for several weeks, during which 
time his bride was properly equipped as an offi- 
cer's lady, and learned many things necessary to 



302 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

her new position. She was by nature refined 
and polite ; her perceptions were quick, and she 
possessed tact — that quality most necessary to 
social intercourse, but which cannot be taught to 
those who have it not. 

Her reception by the society to which she now 
belonged, was better than she expected; and 
though she had to bear some scorn and contume- 
ly from the higher-born, she made some real and 
true friends, and was much admired by the gen- 
tlemen. Her beauty was now a disadvantage, for 
it made the women envious and jealous, and the 
men gallant and flattering. She was bright and 
lively in conversation, clever at keeping up a 
joke, and quick at repartee, so her society was 
very much courted by the officers of her hus- 
band's regiment. The surgeon, especially, as 
having more leisure, was her constant guest, and 
used to read to her from the best authors, and 
explain to her what her very limited education 
made unintelligible. This is what her husband 
should have done, but he was idle and careless, 
and preferred playing billiards, or cards, with his 
comrades. 

She spoke to me once of this period of her life 
as full of danger. She had become an object of 
strong interest and affection to a refined and cul- 
tivated man. She was grateful to him for im- 
proving and elevating her intellect, and for a 



I 



THE GARDENER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 303 

thousand kind attentions, such as her thoughtless 
young husband never paid her. She wished to 
regard him as a brother, and treated him as 
such ; but he put more of the lover into his man- 
ner and conversation than she thought proper. 
She tried to keep her husband more at home, but 
in vain. At last she told him in a joking way 
that if he was not more attentive to her, she 
should fall in love with the doctor, who was so 
devoted to her. Her husband laughed, and said 
he would trust her. That expression helped her. 
Happily she had read none of those bad novels 
which undermine the morals of the present day. 
She never heard of the doctrine of affinities ; she 
had read her Bible, and believed in its strictest 
requirements, and made up her mind to deny 
herself the society of one who might become too 
dear to her. Her dangerous friend was obliged 
to be absent from his regiment for several weeks. 
There was one particular color which she some- 
times wore, and which he disliked so much that 
he begged her never to wear it ; and in a last 
chat with her before his departure, he said, "If I 
should see you with that color on when I return, 
I shall think that you no longer care anything 
about me." 

On that speech she acted, — was arrayed in the 
obnoxious color on the evening of his return, and 
met him in the rooms of a friend, not in her own. 



304 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

The intimacy was broken off and never renewed. 
He felt it so much that he could not bear to be 
near her and not with her, so he exchanged into 
another regiment and never saw her more. 

A fit of illness made her husband dependent 
on her ministrations and brought them again 
into close communion with each other. It also 
gave a serious turn to his mind, and he rose 
up from that sickness a better and a wiser 
man. 

Several years after, when peace was made with 
France, and the militia was disbanded, he deter- 
mined to enter the Church, and began his studies 
accordingly. It was at this time that I first knew 
him and his charming wife. They hired one of 
my father's cottages, and became very intimate 
in our family. We lived in the diocese of the 
Bishop of St. David's ; and he refused to ordain 
men who, having left a military life, wished to 
become clergymen, because he thought they did 
it merely as a means of support, without any fit- 
ness for the vocation. The Bishop of Sodor and 

Man had no such scruples ; so Mr. B went to 

the Isle of Man, and having resided there six 
months, was ordained. About the same time a 
relation died to whom he was heir-at-law, and 
he came into possession of a handsome estate in 
Devonshire ; and for the sake of performing his 
part as a clergyman, he became curate to an 



THE GARDENER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 305 

absent rector, and did duty in the parish church 
near his residence. His wife graced her new po- 
sition, and her cup of happiness was made full 
to the brim by becoming the mother of a fine 
boy. 



306 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 

IT lias always been the custom for meritorious 
deeds of arms to be rewarded by titles and 
honors, but it is only in modern times that peace- 
ful civilians have been so rewarded for services 
rendered to their fellow-citizens. A signal in- 
stance of this occurs to me in the case of a phy- 
sician, who, for his humane treatment of insane 
patients, was knighted by Queen Victoria. I re- 
fer to Sir William Ellis. He was at the head of 
the great lunatic asylum for paupers at Hanwell, 
near London, which I once visited, and saw the 
happy effects of his system on eight hundred pa- 
tients, who were there taken care of without 
coercion or severity of any kind. No strait- 
waistcoats, no strapping patients into beds or 
chairs, no punishments of any kind were used, — 
nothing but the personal influence of Sir "William 
and Lady Ellis ; and their power over all under 
their care was extraordinary. Even persons in 
the height of an attack of mania yielded to it. 
Part of their system was to keep the patients as 
fully and as happily employed as was possible, 



LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 307 

and the "whole establishment was like a great 
school of industry. The pleasure-grounds and 
the gardens were all kept in order by the pa- 
tients, watched over by competent persons. Sir 
William Ellis took great pains to imbue with his 
own spirit of kindness and patience all whom 
he employed in the care of the insane, and Lady 
Ellis was a true helpmate to him. 

The extraordinary success of the mild treat- 
ment in the Hanwell Asylum soon became 
known, and numerous applications for admit- 
tance there were made by the rich and great, 
who would pay any price to secure such treat- 
ment for their insane relations ; but their ability 
to pay was a complete bar to their reception, — 
none but the very poor could be received at Han- 
well. 

The number of paying patients thus refused 
admittance to the pauper asylum was so great, 
that it put it into the heads of some philanthro- 
pists to establish an asylum for the rich, on the 
same plan as that at Hanwell, but with such ac- 
commodations as would be in accordance with 
the manner of living to which the wealthy were 
accustomed. A handsome country-seat was hired, 
within twenty miles of London, a physician cho- 
sen to preside over it, with a fixed salary, and an 
educated person employed to take care of each 
insane patient. Carriages and horses were pro- 



308 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

vided for their use, and a row-boat, on a piece of 
water made to look like a river, was a never-fail- 
ing source of amusement. A billiard-table too 
was a great resource in wet weather. Every 
evening a spacious and handsome drawing-room 
was well lighted, and the patients, attendants, 
the physician and his wife, with any guests who 
happened to be there, would assemble in it and 
amuse themselves with various games, music, 
and conversation, till nine o'clock, when family 
prayers were attended in a pretty chapel in the 
house, after which all retired for the night. 

When I visited this invalid establishment, as it 
was called, there were about a dozen patients in 
it who were not very insane, and nearly as many 
educated attendants. Some of these were well- 
bred persons, who dined at the same table with 
the patients and guests ; and a stranger, dining 
with them, could not distinguish the sane from 
the insane, so well did the patients behave them- 
selves. One of them, an elderly clergyman of 
the Church of England, always said grace before 
and after dinner. He was quite a character, and 
amused the whole household with his sallies of 
wit, his poetic effusions, and his various peculi- 
arities. One fine morning there was an unusual 
flocking of patients and guests to the river, where 
this reverend gentleman had decorated the boat 
with boughs of trees and red bandanna handker- 



LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 309 

chiefs. He called it Cleopatra's barge, and was 
handing in an ~old lady of seventy to give her a 
row in it. Some of the visitors had tried to 
frighten her from going on the water with an in- 
sane man ; but she knew no fear, and when he 
invited her into Cleopatra's barge, she delighted 
him by saying, " If I am Cleopatra, you must be 
Mark Antony." When she had been out long 
enough and wished to land, he was not willing to 
go back until she reminded him that Mark An- 
tony always did exactly as Cleopatra wished. 
That was sufficient to make him return immedi- 
ately. The same brave old lady was visiting a 
patient who was confined to her room, for a few 
days, because she could not command herself 
sufficiently well to be in the drawing-room. The 
attendant who had been sitting with her asked 
the visitor if she was willing to remain there 
while she went down to her dinner.. She as- 
sented, and was locked into the room with the 
refractory patient. They were seated on each side 
of the fireplace, when the invalid said, " Are you 
not afraid to be left with me when that poker is 
so near me ? " " Oh ! no," replied th^ old lady, 
"not while I have the tongs and shovel so near 
me!" The patient laughed, and was very quiet 
and inoffensive. 

I have mentioned guests as being in this insti- 
tution, because the friends of the patients were 



310 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



allowed to visit them occasionally, when deemed 
proper by the physician of the establishment. 

In strong contrast with the instances I have 
given of persons not at all afraid of the insane, 
is one which I remember of unreasonable alarm. 
Among the companions of my girlhood was one, re- 
markably pretty and amiable, but always laughed 
at for being a great coward. She had many ad- 
mirers, and was early married to an excellent 
youth with a good fortune. She became mistress 
of one of those charming country-seats, for which 
England is so remarkable, and enjoyed for a short 
time the happiness of a true union. Soon, how- 
ever, her husband showed great uneasiness of 
mind, and when driving out with his wife, ex- 
pressed fears of being waylaid, and avoided pass- 
ing through woods lest his enemies should start 
out from behind trees. This of course frightened 
her almost out of her wits, and she became very 
miserable. A brother of hers paid her a visit, 
was told of her fears and alarms, and assured her 
there was no cause for them. He saw at once 
that his brother-in-law was insane and needed 
care. T]je next morning, while the young wife 
was making her tea on the breakfast-table, and 
her husband was standing opposite to her, she saw 
two men enter softly behind him, take hold of his 
arms and lead him off. She screamed and fell 
on the floor in a swoon. Her brother was at hand 



LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 311 

to soothe and comfort her with the assurance that 
her husband was not seized by his enemies, as she 
supposed, but by those who would take the best 
care of him. 

By degrees he informed her that her husband 
was insane and needed restraint ; but that in all 
probability the malady would be only temporary. 
As soon as she was convinced that he was de- 
ranged, she was reconciled to the separation, and 
thanked her brother for it. Her fear of the in- 
sane was so extreme that she never could be per- 
suaded to see her husband again, though he re- 
covered his health, and lived several years a 
sane but almost broken-hearted man. He corre- 
sponded with his wife, and her letters betrayed 
such a dread of meeting him, that to allay her 
fears and make her life more tranquil, he went 
abroad to live, and promised her never to set foot 
in England. Even this great proof of his gen- 
erous affection could not overcome her unreason- 
able fears. They never met again. 

After being a widow several years, she made 
another very happy match, lived without any 
alarms for one year, became a mother, and lost 
her reason for life. 

One of the most interesting varieties in cases 
of derangement is that in which the patient as- 
cribes mind and meaning to all inanimate objects. 
I remember an interesting case of this kind in 



312 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

England. Some friends of mine were assembled 
round the door of a charity school, waiting for 
the arrival of a committee, who were to distrib- 
ute the prizes, when a very singular-looking old 
man attracted their attention. In those days the 
hair and beard were usually cut short ; his had 
not been shorn for years ; his hair lay in rolls 
about his shoulders, and his beard, which was 
quite white and silvery, concealed all his face be- 
low the nose; it appeared to be arranged with 
great care, as Rubens used to paint beards. From 
the midst of so much white hair his sparkling 
eyes and hooked nose looked out like those of an 
owl, yet the eyes were full of happiness, and spar- 
kled with joy, not fierceness. His dress seemed to 
be new, and consisted of an olive-colored, square- 
cut coat, a dark blue waistcoat of the oldest fash 
ion, a pair of yellow velveteen breeches, which 
were loose enough to form fine draperies, and blue 
stockings. He was very upright, and moved with 
an abrupt and nimble air. He stood apart and 
eyed the company with piercing and inquisitive 
glances, when one who knew him thus addressed 
him : u Why, Fitz-Hugh, how is it I see you with 
a black hat on ? " " It is not my choice, you may 
be sure." " What is your objection to black ? " 
" Why you know all colors are but emblems, and 
black is an emblem of faith falsified. 0, it is a 
shocking color ! " " Then what would you wear 



LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 313 

for mourning ? " " An autumn tint, to be sure ; 
autumn is mourning." " Are you still favored 
to discern spirits as you used to be ? " said some 
one. "Yes," said he, with a most happy and 
satisfied smile ; " yes ! at this moment I see 
a spirit of fairness on that young man," pointing 
to a well-dressed stranger, who had drawn near 
to hear what was saying, but drew back abashed, 
as every one involuntarily turned to look for the 
spirit of fairness. 

Fitz-Hugh used to be seen walking triangles on 
the Common, or staring like an eagle at the sun, 
waiting for a sign. He was very religious, and 
continually whispered to himself, " Peace, peace," 
in the most emphatic way. 

I used to wish that Sir Walter Scott had known 
this charming old man, he would have figured so 
well in one of his tales. 



14 



314 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

COURTS OF LAW. 

I ALWAYS admired Sir Francis Burdett for 
avoiding the ovation prepared for him by the 
common people, on his release from the Tower, 
where he had been confined for a political of- 
fence. He feared that the zeal of his friends and 
admirers might lead them into difficulty, and he 
had too much regard for them to expose them to 
danger on his account ; so, with a truly generous 
self-denial, he declined all the honors intended for 
him, and quietly left the Tower, in a boat, while 
the streets were crowded for miles with people 
waiting to welcome him. His enemies called this 
a cowardly act ; but I was among his friends, 
and heard it spoken of as a noble instance of his 
humanity. 

Many years afterwards, I was visiting in Sur- 
rey, England, when Sir Francis Burdett was tried 
there for breach of prison, and being the guest of 
a family who were radical in their politics, and 
admirers of Sir Francis, we all went to the court- 
house in Guildford to hear the trial. He had 
been imprisoned again, for what offence I cannot 



I 



COURTS OF LAW. 315 

remember, and wishing to use his personal influ- 
ence, in some cause of human liberty, he had es- 
caped from confinement ; but having served his 
purpose, he suffered himself to be recaptured, 
and returned to prison. He escaped by pretend- 
ing to change his sofa for a better one, and was 
carried out concealed in the bed of the rejected 
sofa. For this breach of prison he was now to be 
tried at the Guildford assize court. The trial 
was scarcely begun before it was very evident 
that the bench and the bar were very hostile to 
him ; but the common people, who thronged the 
court-room, considered him their champion, and 
listened to the proceedings with very friendly 
interest. 

Sir Francis refused to employ counsel; he 
chose to plead his own cause, and did it with 
dignity and composure. His appearance was 
that of a man between forty and fifty years of 
age, in delicate health, but full of mental vigor. 
His plea was, that he had not broken any law ; 
he said the very meaning of imprisonment was 
keeping a man shut up against his will, and if 
any one was guilty it was the jailer, for suffering 
him to escape. He stated this so clearly and 
forcibly that it made the trial seem to be a ridic- 
ulous farce. In the course of his speech, he 
took occasion to broach many of his radical opin- 
ions, and to give severe cuts at many old abuses ; 



816 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

he was often called to order by the judge and the 
lawyers, who became highly irritated as he pro- 
ceeded. Though often interrupted, he managed 
to say much that he wished the people to hear, 
made a very capital defence of his breach of pri- 
son, and was, I believe, let off with a small fine 
and costs. 

I was once in an English court when a man 
was tried for stealing a sheep, and death was at 
that time the penalty, if proved guilty. I listened 
to the evidence with the painful assurance that it 
must convict him ; but in spite of it, and of the 
judge's charge being dead against the prisoner, 
the jury brought in a verdict of " not guilty," 
owing, no doubt, to their horror of taking life for 
the theft of a sheep. 

My next experience of courts was in Newport, 
Rhode Island, where Judge Story took me to his 
circuit court, on purpose to hear Daniel Webster 
plead against a man who had taken charge of 
a large sum of money, in doubloons, to oblige a 
friend, and had been robbed of them. The plea 
for the defence was very able and seemed un- 
answerable ; but when Mr. Webster spoke, he tore 
in rags and tatters the web of reasoning which 
had just appeared so strong, and made one feel 
ashamed of having supposed the man who lost 
the money could be excused for it. The court 
rang with the deep sonorous voice of Mr. Web- 



COURTS OF LAW. 317 

ster, when he pronounced the words " unpardon- 
able negligence " again and again, in the most 
emphatic tones. He won the case and won the 
admiration of all who heard him. Mr. Webster 
was then in his prime, and he looked the grand 
character that he was. Judge Story, too, was the 
beau ideal of a judge. His serene and benevo- 
lent countenance gave the promise of as much 
mercy as was compatible with justice. I hap- 
pened to be at Newport when the Circuit Court 
was sitting there and saw much of those two 
great men, and the impression they made on me 
at that time was so strong, that in writing this, I 
seem to see them before me and hear again their 
voices, though it is more than forty years ago. 

I never was again in an American court of law, 
until a few years since, when I went from Balti- 
more to Washington, on purpose to hear Jacob 
Barker plead his own cause before the judges of 
the Supreme Court, who listened to him with evi- 
dent pleasure for four consecutive days, and for 
three or four hours e'ach day. 

His claim on the United States government 
dated back to the time of the war with England 
in 1812. At that period of great financial dis- 
tress in the treasury department, Jacob Barker 
raised a large loan for the government, and this 
has never been fully repaid, though he has been 
prosecuting his claim ever since. In stating his 



318 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

case before the judges, he gave an interesting and 
very spirited review of the whole period, inter- 
spersed with lively anecdotes, and delivered with 
great energy and fluency. 

The first day of his speaking the Attorney- 
General was present, and after listening for an 
hour, he tried to stop Mr. Barker, and begged the 
judges not to let him go on at such length. But 
they said they would listen to Mr. Barker as long 
as he pleased to speak ; on which the Attorney- 
General left the court, and never appeared again 
till Mr. Barker had finished. This long plea was 
made by an octogenarian, and no young man 
could have done it with more energy, acuteness, 
or vivacity. 



MISS DELIA BACON. 319 



CHAPTER XL. 

MISS DELIA BACON. 

THE first lady whom I ever heard deliver a 
public lecture was Miss Delia Bacon, who 
opened her career in Boston, as teacher of his- 
tory, by giving a preliminary discourse, describ- 
ing her method, and urging upon her hearers 
the importance of the study. 

I had called on her that day for the first time, 
and found her very nervous and anxious about 
her first appearance in public. She interested 
me at once, and I resolved to hear her speak. 
Her person was tall and commanding, her finely 
shaped head was well set on her shoulders, her 
face was handsome and full of expression, and 
she moved with grace and dignity. The hall 
in which she spoke was so crowded that I could 
not get a seat, but she spoke so well that I felt 
no fatigue from standing. She was at first a lit- 
tle embarrassed, but soon became so engaged in 
recommending the study of history to all present, 
that she ceased to think of herself, and then she 
became eloquent. 

Her course of oral lessons, or lectures, on his- 



320 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 



tory interested her class of ladies so much that 
she was induced to repeat them, and I heard 
several who attended them speak in the highest 
terms of them. She not only spoke, but read 
well, and when on the subject of Roman history, 
she delighted her audience by giving them with 
great effect some of Macaulay's Lays. 

I persuaded her to give her lessons in Cam- 
bridge, and she had a very appreciative class as- 
sembled in the large parlor of the Brattle House. 
She spoke without notes, entirely from her own 
well-stored memory ; and she would so group her 
facts as to present to us historical pictures calcu- 
lated to make a lasting impression. She was so 
much admired and liked in Cambridge, that a 
lady there invited her to spend the winter with 
her as her guest, and I gave her the use of my 
parlor for another course of lectures. In these 
she brought down her history to the time of the 
birth of Christ, and I can never forget how clear 
she made it to us that the world was only then 
made fit for the advent of Jesus. She ended 
with a fine climax that was quite thrilling. 

In her Cambridge course she had maps, charts, 
models, pictures, and everything she needed to 
illustrate her subject. This added much to her 
pleasure and ours. All who saw her then must 
remember how handsome she was, and how grace- 
fully she used her wand in pointing to the illus- 



MISS DELIA BACON. 321 

trations of her subject. I used to be reminded 
by her of Raphael's sibyls, and she often spoke 
like an oracle. 

She and a few of her class would often stay 
after the lesson and take tea with me, and then 
she would talk delightfully for the rest of the 
evening. It was very inconsiderate in us to al- 
low her to do so, and when her course ended 
she was half dead with fatigue. She expressed a 
great desire to go to England, and I told her she 
could go and pay all her expenses by her historical 
lessons. Belonging to a religious sect in which 
her family held a distinguished place, she would 
be well received by the same denomination in 
England, and have the best of assistance in ob- 
taining classes. After talking this up for some 
time, I perceived that I was talking in vain. She 
had no notion of going to England to teach his- 
tory ; all she wanted to go for was to obtain 
proof of the truth of her theory, that Shake- 
speare did not write the plays attributed to him, 
but that Lord Bacon did. This was sufficient to 
prevent my ever again encouraging her going to 
England, or talking with her about Shakespeare. 
The lady whom she was visiting put her copy of 
his works out of sight, and never allowed her to 
converse with her on this, her favorite subject. 
We considered it dangerous for Miss Bacon 
to dwell on this fancy, and thought that, if in- 

14* u 



322 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

dulged, it might become a monomania, which it 
subsequently did. 

She went from Cambridge to Northampton, 
and spent the summer on Round Hill, as a 
boarder at a hydropathic establishment. Sepa- 
rated from all who knew her, and were interested 
in her, she gave herself up to her favorite theme. 
She believed that the plays called Shakespeare's 
contained a double meaning, and that a whole 
system of philosophy was hidden in them, which 
the world at that time was not prepared to re- 
ceive, and therefore Lord Bacon had left it to 
posterity thus disguised. At Round Hill she 
spent whole days and weeks in her chamber, 
took no exercise, and ate scarcely any food, till 
she became seriously ill. After much suffering 
sh \ recovered and went to New York. To pay 
her expenses she was obliged to give a course of 
lessons on histDry ; but her heart was not in 
them, — she was meditating a flight to England. 
Her old friends and her relations would not of 
course furnish her with the means of doing what 
they highly disapproved ; but some new acquaint- 
ances in New York believed in her theory, and 
were but too happy to aid her in making known 
her grand discovery. A handsome wardrobe and 
ample means were freely bestowed upon her, and 
kind friends attended her to the vessel which was 
to carry her to England on her Quixotic expedi- 



MISS DELIA BACON. 323 

tion. Her mind was so devoted to the genius of 
Lord Bacon that her first pilgrimage was to St. 
Albans, where he had lived when in retirement, 
and where she supposed that he had written all 
those plays attributed to Shakespeare. She lived 
there a year, and then came to London, all alone 
and unknown, to seek a home there. She thus 
describes her search after lodgings: "On a dark 
December day, about one o'clock, I came into 
this metropolis, intending, with the aid of Provi- 
dence, to select, between that and nightfall, a 
residence in it. I had copied from the Times 
several advertisements of lodging-houses, but 
none of them suited me. The cab-driver, per- 
ceiving what I was in search of, began to make 
suggestions of his own, and finding that he was 
a man equal to the emergency, and knowing that 
his acquaintance with the subject was larger than 
mine, I put the business into his hands. I told 
him to stop at the first good house which he 
thought would suit me, and he brought me to 
this door, where I have been ever since. Any 
one who thinks this is not equal to Elijah and 
his raven, and Daniel in the lions' den, does not 
know what it is for a lady, and a stranger, to live 
for a year in London, without any money to 
speak of, maintaining all the time the position of 
a lady, and a distinguished lady too ; and above 
all, such a one cannot be acquainted with the 



324 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

nature of cab-drivers and lodging-house keepers 
in general. The one with whom I lodge has be- 
haved to me like an absolute gentleman. No one 
could have shown more courtesy and delicacy. 
For six months at a time he has never sent me 
a bill ; before this I had always paid him week- 
ly, and I believe that is customary. When after 
waiting six months I sent him ten pounds, and 
he knew that it was all I had, he wrote a note to 
me, which I preserve as a curiosity, to say that 
he would entirely prefer that I should keep it. 
I have lived upon this man's confidence in me 
for a year, and this comparatively pleasant and 
comfortable home is one that I owe to the judg- 
ment and taste of a cab-driver. .... Your ten 
pounds was brought me two or three hours after 
your letter came, and I sent it immediately to 
Mr. Walker, and now I am entirely relieved of 
that most painful feeling of the impropriety of 
depending upon him in this way, which it has re- 
quired all my faith and philosophy to endure, be- 
cause he can now very well wait for the rest, and 
perceive that the postponement is not an indefi- 
nite one. Your letter has warmed my heart, and 
that was what had suffered most. I would have 
frozen into a Niobe before I would have asked 
any help for myself, and would sell gingerbread 
and apples at the corner of a street for the rest 
of my days before I could stoop, for myself, to 



MISS DELIA BACON. 325 

such humiliations as I have borne in behalf of 
my work, which was the world's work, and I 
knew that I had a right to demand aid for it." 

In her first interview with Carlyle she told him 
of her great discovery in regard to Shakespeare's 
plays, so called, and he appeared to be interested 
in her, if not in her hypothesis ; but he treated 
that with respect, and advised her to put her 
thoughts on paper. She accordingly accepted an 
arrangement, kindly made for her by Mr. R. W. 
Emerson with the editors of a Boston magazine, 
worked very hard, and soon sent off eighty pages. 
A part of this was published, and she received 
eighteen pounds for it. Had this contract been 
carried out, the money made by it would have 
supported her comfortably in London, but there 
arose some misunderstanding between her and 
the editors, owing, perhaps, to her want of method 
and ignorance of business. She considered her- 
self very ill-used, and would have nothing more 
to do with them. Her theory should be set forth 
in a book. 

She now found an excellent and powerful 
friend in Mr. Hawthorne. He kindly undertook 
to make an agreement with a publisher, and 
promised her that her book should be printed if 
she would write it. Deprived of her expected 
emolument from writing articles for a periodical, 
she was much distressed for want of funds, and 



326 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

suffered many privations during the time that 
she was writing her book. She lived on the 
poorest food,- and was often without the means 
of having a fire in her chamber. She told me 
that she wrote a great part of her large octavo 
volume sitting up in bed, in order to keep warm. 

It was when her work was about half done 
that she wrote to me the letter from which I have 
made the foregoing extract. Her life of priva- 
tion and seclusion was very injurious to both body 
and mind. How great that seclusion was, is seen 
in the following passage from another of her let- 
ters to me. 

ft I am glad to know that you are still alive and 
on this side of that wide sea which parts me from 
so many that were once so near, for I have lived 
here much like a departed spirit, looking back on 
the joys and sorrows of a world in which I have 
no longer any place. I have been more than a 
year in this house, and have had but three visitors 
in all that time, and paid but one visit myself, and 
that was to Carlyle, after he had taken the trouble 
to come all the way from Chelsea to invite me, 
and though he has since written to invite me, I 
have not been able to accept his kindness. I 
have had calls from Mr. Grote and Mr. Monck- 
ton Milnes ; and Mr. Buchanan came to see me, 
though I had not delivered my letter to him." 

All the fine spirits who knew Miss Bacon found 



MISS DELIA BACON. 327 

in her what pleased and interested them, and had 
not that one engrossing idea possessed her, she 
might have had a brilliant career among the lit- 
erary society of London. 

One dark winter evening, after writing all day 
in her bed, she rose, threw on some clothes, and 
walked out to take the air. Her lodgings were 
at the West End of London, near to Sussex Gar- 
dens, and not far from where my mother lived. 
She needed my address, and suddenly resolved to 

go to the house of Mrs. R for it. She sent in 

her request, and while standing in the doorway 
she had a glimpse of the interior. It looked 
warm, cheerful, and inviting, and she had a strong 
desire to see my mother ; so she readily accepted 
an invitation to walk in, and found the old lady 
with her daughter and a friend just sitting down 
to tea. Happily my sister remembered that a 
Miss Bacon had been favorably mentioned in my 
letters from Cambridge, so she had no hesitation 
in asking her to take tea with them. The stran- 
ger's dress was such an extraordinary dishabille 
that nothing but her ladylike manners and con- 
versation could have convinced the family that- she 
was the person whom she pretended to be. She 
told me how much ashamed she was of her ap- 
pearance that evening ; she had intended going 
only to the door, but could not resist the inclina- 
tion to enter and sit down at that cheerful tea- 
table, which looked so like mine in Cambridge. 



328 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 

The next summer I was living in London. The 
death of a dear friend had just occurred in my 
house ; the relatives were collected there, and all 
were feeling very sad, when I was told by my ser- 
vant that a lady wished to see me. I sent word 
that there was death in the house and I could see 
no one that night. The servant returned, saying, 
" She will not go away, ma'am, and she will not 
give her name." 

On hearing this I went to the door, and there 
stood Delia Bacon, pale and sad. I took her in 
my arms and pressed her to my bosom ; she 
gasped for breath and could not speak. We went 
into a vacant room and sat down together. She 
was faint, but recovered on drinking a glass of 
port wine, and then she told me that her book 
was finished and in the hands of Mr. Hawthorne, 
and now she was ready to go to Stratford-upon- 
Avon. There she expected to verify her hypothe- 
sis, by opening the tomb of Shakespeare, where 
she felt sure of finding papers that would disclose 
the real authorship of the plays. I tried in vain 
to dissuade her from this insane project ; she was 
resolved, and only wished for my aid in winding 
up her affairs in London and setting her off for 
Stratford. This aid I gave with many a sad mis- 
giving as to the result. She looked so ill when I 
took leave of her in the railroad carriage that I 
blamed myself for not having accompanied her 



MISS DELIA BACON. 329 

to Stratford, and was only put at ease by a very 
cheerful letter from her, received a few days after 
her departure. 

On arriving at Stratford she was so exhausted 
that she could only creep up to bed at the inn, 
and when she inquired about lodgings it was 
doubtful to herself, and all who saw her, whether 
she would live to need any. One person ex- 
pressed this to her, but her brave heart and strong 
will carried her out the next day in search of a 
home, and here as in London she fell into good 
hands. She entered a very pretty cottage, the 
door of which stood open, found no one in it, but 
sat down and waited for some one to appear. 
Presently the owner entered, an elderly lady, liv- 
ing on her income, with only one servant. She 
had never taken any lodger, but she would not 
send Miss Bacon away, because she was a stran- 
ger and ill ; and she remembered, she said, that 
Abraham had entertained angels unawares. So 
she made her lie down on her sofa, and covered 
her up, and went off to prepare some dinner for 
her. Miss Bacon says, in her letter tome : "There 
I was, at the same hour when I left you, the day 
before, looking out upon the trees that skirt the 
Avon, and that church and spire only a few yards 
from me, but so weak that I did not expect ever 
to go there. I know that I have been very near 
death. If anything can restore me it will be the 
motherly treatment I have here." 



330 KECOLLECTIONS OF SEVENTY YEAKS. 

A few weeks after this, I received a very cheer- 
ful letter from her on the subject of the publish- 
er of her book. She writes, " I want you to 
help me ; help me bear this new kind of bur- 
den which I am so little used to. The editor 
of Fraser's Magazine, Parker, the very best pub- 
lisher in England, is going to publish my book 
immediately, in such haste that they cannot stay 
to send me the proofs. That was the piece of 
news which came with your letter. How I 
wished it had been yourself instead, that you 
might share it with me on the instant. It was a 
relief to me to be assured that your generous 
heart was so near to be gladdened with it. Pa- 
tience has had its perfect work. For the sake of 
those who have loved and trusted me, for the 
sake of those who have borne my burdens with 
me, how I rejoice ! 

" Mr. Bennock writes to me for the title, and 
says this has been suggested, i The Shakespeare 
Problem Solved by Delia Bacon ' ; but I am 
afraid that, with the name, sounds too boastful. 
I have thought of suggesting ' The Shakespeare 
Problem, by Delia Bacon,' leaving the reader to 
infer the rest. I have also thought of calling it 
' The Baconian Philosophy in Prose and Verse, 
by Delia Bacon ' ; or the ' Fables of the Baco- 
nian Philosophy.' But the publishers are the 
best judges of such things." 



MISS DELIA BACON. 331 

That the book should be published under such 
agreeable auspices was the crowning blessing of 
her arduous labors, and it is a comfort to her 
friends that this gleam of sunshine illumined her 
path before the clouds settled down more darkly 
than ever on her fine mind. 

She remained for several months in Stratford, 
but I believe she never attempted to open the 
tomb of Shakespeare ; and when she left that 
place, she returned home to die in the bosom of 
her family. Thus ends the history of a highly 
gifted and noble-minded woman. 




THE END. 



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